CMSA Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics: Orbifold Groupoids

CMSA EVENTS

Speaker:

Justin Kulp - Perimeter

Orbifolds are ubiquitous in physics, not just explicitly in CFT, but going undercover with names like Kramers-Wannier duality, Jordan-Wigner transformation, or GSO projection. All of these names describe ways to "topologically manipulate" a theory, transforming it to a new one, but leaving the local dynamics unchanged. In my talk, I will answer the question: given some (1+1)d QFT, how many new theories can we produce by topological manipulations? To do so, I will outline the relationship between these manipulations and (2+1)d Dijkgraaf-Witten TFTs, and illustrate both the conceptual and computational power of the relationship. Ideas from high-energy, condensed-matter, and pure math will show up in one form or another. Based on work with Davide Gaiotto [arxiv:2008.05960].

Zoom: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/977347126