Category: List of Bases 2012 Throughout the year RESEARCH IN PARTICLE AND ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS

Title:

Joint ICTP-SISSA String Seminars: Three-dimensional superconformal field theories and Fermi gases

Start Time:

15:00

Location:

ICTP (Leonardo da Vinci Building Euler Lecture Hall)

Speaker(s):

Marcos MARINO (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

Description:

Abstract: The partition function on the three-sphere of many superconformal field theories (SCFTs)(including the ABJM theory) can be reduced to a matrix integral by using localization techniques. This makes possible to study this quantity in the strong coupling, large N regime, by studying the associated matrix models. In this talk I will review these developments, which lead to precision tests of the AdS/CFT correspondence, and explain a new method to study a large class of matrix models appearing in this context. The method is based on reformulating the model as a one-dimensional ideal Fermi gas with a non-trivial, one-particle quantum Hamiltonian, and leads to a simple picture of the strongly coupled dynamics of these theories (including the famous 3/2 scaling of the number of degrees of freedom). Moreover, simple semiclassical calculations in the Fermi gas make possible to determine the full 1/N asymptotics of the partition function.