Langlands Meeting on Friday, September 17, 2004

Time: 3:10pm,
Place: 430 Birge Hall.

Modular Forms From Instanton Moduli Spaces

Abstract:

In [hep-th/9408074], Vafa and Witten constructed modular forms with Fourier series coefficients that are Euler numbers of (compactified) instanton moduli spaces of certain four-manifolds. I will review their construction and explain the physical intuition (electric/magnetic duality) behind it. It is widely believed that electric/magnetic duality and the existence of such modular forms have a natural explanation in six-dimensional physics. Witten conjectured that there exists a strongly-coupled six-dimensional quantum field theory that is responsible for these observations. The search for this mysterious field theory is an ongoing effort in string theory.

Speaker: Ori Ganor

Topics to be covered

References


Please contact Ori Ganor at origa@socrates.berkeley.edu if you have any questions or comments about this website, or if you would like to volunteer to give a talk.