Ben Webster (U. of Waterloo), “Mathematical hints of 3-d mirror symmetry”

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Abstract: 3 dimensional N=4 supersymmetric quantum field theories have two distinguished topological twists, called Higgs and Coulomb (though we periodically get confused about which is which). These two twists manifest very interesting mathematical objects in Lie theory and algebraic geometry, which don’t seem to obviously be related, except through this bridge in QFT. I’ll do my best to explain what physicists know to mathematicians, what mathematicians know to physicists, and if I fail at both, hopefully there will be some comedy value in my attempt.