Yifan Wang - Defects and Anomalies in Quantum Field Theories

Tuesday 23 Mar 2021, 15:30 → 17:30 Europe/Zurich

Zoom Only (CERN)

Zoom virtual seminar: Click here to enter room

Abstract:

I will review some recent developments in understanding the structure of anomalies in the presence of defects in CFTs. The defect insertions lead to new 't Hooft anomalies and conformal anomalies on the defect worldvolume. The latter give rise to defect analogs of the c-theorem (a-theorem) which establish the monotonicity of defect RG flows. With supersymmetry, the defect conformal anomalies are related to the 't Hooft anomalies for certain U(1) R-symmetry in a simple way, and can be determined non-perturbatively from an algebraic procedure. In the talk I'll mostly focus on surface defects to be concrete and comment on extensions and future directions towards the end.