An early highlight of quantum topology was the observation that the Jones polynomial — and many other knot and link invariants — arise from braided monoidal categories of quantum group representations. In hindsight, this can be understood as underlying reason for the existence  of associated topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) in 3 and 4 dimensions. Not much later, Khovanov discovered … Read More

Abstract:Schur quantization refers to a particular type of representation of the quantized algebras of functions on Coulomb branches of vacua of N=2, d=4 supersymmetric quantum field theories,  providing a quantum theoretical interpretation of the Schur indices. My talk will describe how the  Schur quantization encodes key aspects of the low energy physics of the underlying theory, and how it provides a new quantization of … Read More

Abstract: Khovanov homology is a powerful link invariant which has numerous applications. It is powerful not only because it is a strong invariant, but also it is functorial and has many relations with other invariants. In 2018, Stoffregen-Zhang realized that there is a spectral sequence from the Khovanov homology of a periodic link to the annular Khovanov homology of its … Read More