Talks

The observed conservation of Baryon and Lepton number may arise because they are gauge symmetries. Models are discussed where Baryon and lepton number are the charges for a spontaneously broken U(1) gauge symmetries. The best of these models is: (1) free of Landau poles that are near the weak scale, (2) has no flavor changing neutral currents at tree level and (3) contains a dark matter candidate.

In the so-called unitary limit of quantum gases, the scattering length diverges and the theory becomes scale invariant with dynamical exponent z=2. This point occurs precisely at the crossover between strongly coupled BEC and BCS. These systems are currently under intense experimental study using cold atoms and Feshbach resonances to tune the scattering length. We developed a new approach to the statistical mechanics of gases in higher dimensions modeled after the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz, i.e. based on the exact 2-body S-matrix. Calculations of the critical temperature Tc/T_F = 0.1 are in good agreement with experiments and Monte-Carlo studies. We also calculated the ratio of viscosity to entropy density and obtained 4.7 times the conjectured lower bound of 1/4 pi, in good agreement with very recent experiments. We also present evidence for a strongly interacting version of BEC.

In this talk we give a survey of recent developments concerning the fermionic structure in the sine-Gordon model. For the lattice counterpart (6 vertex model), we introduce fermions acting on the space of (quasi) local operators. The main theorem is a determinant formula for the expectation values of fermionic descendants of primary fields. In the continuum limit this construction gives rise to a basis of the space of all descendant fields, whose expectation values take a very simple form. Unexpectedly, it turns out that the action of our fermions on form factors coincides with yet another fermions which have been introduced some time ago by Babelon, Bernard and Smirnov.

For N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, in the large-N limit and at strong coupling, Wilson loops can be computed using the AdS/CFT correspondence. In the case of flat Euclidean loops the dual computation consists in finding minimal area surfaces in Euclidean AdS3 space. In such case very few solutions were known. In this talk I will describe an infinite parameter family of minimal area surfaces that can be described analytically using Riemann Theta functions. Furthermore, for each Wilson loop a one parameter family of deformations that preserve the area can be exhibited explicitly. The area is given by a one dimensional integral over the world-sheet boundary.