Abstract: A review of Double and Exceptional Field including an overview of recent developments that move beyond traditional supergravity descriptions of string backgrounds.

Abstract: JT gravity is a simple two-dimensional theory of gravity. I will describe a precise correspondence between this theory and a random matrix ensemble. We will use this correspondence to help understand the discreteness of the spectrum of energy eigenvalues of a 2d black hole.

Abstract: Two-dimensional conformal field theory is usually quantized by the so-called radial quantization. However, this is not the only way. As a matter of fact, there are two other distinctive choices for the time foliation, or equivalently, the Hamiltonian. One of these choices yields the continuous Virasoro algebra, while the other choice leads to the Virasoro algebra on a torus. … Read More

Abstract: It has been understood for some time now that many highlights of Lie theory, such as the representation-theoretic theory of special functions, or the Kazhdan–Lusztig theory, have a natural extension to a much broader setting, the boundaries of which are yet to be explored. In this extension, the focus is shifting from a group G to various classes of … Read More

Abstract: I will describe how topological entanglement of Chern-Simons theory is captured in a string theoretic realization. The Chern-Simons theory will be realized as the worldvolume dynamics of topological D-branes in the topological A-model string theory on a Calabi-Yau target. Via the open/closed topological string duality one can map this theory onto a pure closed topological A-model string. We will … Read More

Abstract: In these two talks, we will give an introduction to the replica trick and the use of defect CFT techniques for computing entanglement entropy in a general field theory. We will discuss how one can compute shape variations of the entanglement entropy using the displacement operator. This leads us naturally to consider second shape variations of the entanglement entropy, … Read More

Abstract: I will discuss the possibility that certain high-energy holographic CFT states correspond to black hole microstates with a geometrical behind-the-horizon region, modelled by a portion of a second asymptotic region terminating at an end-of-the-world (ETW) brane. The ETW boundary geometry takes the form of a closed FRW spacetime, and, in many cases, this behind-the-horizon physics can be probed directly … Read More

The Penrose inequality is a classical relation that specifies a lower bound on the total mass in terms of the area of certain trapped surfaces. We show that the inclusion of quantum effects violates this relation. We propose a quantum Penrose inequality: the lower bound on the total mass is set by a function of the generalized entropy of the … Read More

I will report on recent advances in understanding entanglement entropy in finite cutoff AdS_{3}/CFT_{2}. This is a proposed duality between gravity in AdS_{3} with a cutoff surface at finite radius and the T\bar{T} deformation of a holographic CFT_{2}. In the large c limit, I will describe the calculation of the entanglement and Renyi entropies and show how they agree with … Read More