Caltech Home > PMA Home > Calendar > Special Geometry Seminar
open search form
Tuesday, February 06, 2018
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Building 15, Room 131

Special Geometry Seminar

Vertex algebras and three dimensional gauge theories
Kevin Costello, Theoretical Physics, Perimeter Institute,

Three dimensional gauge theories (with N=4 or N=2 supersymmetries) have played an important role in recent mathematical work on symplectic duality and related topics. I will explain how to construct from such three dimensional theories a vertex algebra of operators that lives at the boundary. Dualities (such as symplectic duality) become, conjecturally, isomorphisms of vertex algebras. I will explain a conjecture (joint with Gaiotto and Creutzig) that the derived center of the boundary vertex algebra is the algebra of Coulomb branch operators constructed by Braverman, Finkelberg and Nakajima.