Symmetries and surfaces

by Lorenzo Bianchi (Queen Mary, University of London)

Tuesday 1 Oct 2019, 14:00 → 15:30 Europe/Zurich

4/3-006 - TH Conference Room (CERN)

Abstract: In this talk, I will consider surface defects in superconformal theories in four dimensions. I will show that preserved supersymmetry imposes strong constraints on the defect CFT data and it allows to access the non-perturbative regime using a variety of techniques including supersymmetric localization and the vertex operator algebra. I will focus on the latter and I will provide evidence that a class of interesting defect correlation functions are captured by an underlying chiral algebra.