Talks

"Extended" topological field theory generalizes ordinary TQFT to include spacetimes with boundary. Starting from a gauge theory of flat G-connections, and its boundary restriction, I will describe a plan for constructing an extended topological field theory, for any compact Lie group G. This is based on work-in-progress with Jeffrey Morton.

Viscosity is a very old concept which was introduced to physics by Navier in the 19th century. However, in strongly coupled systems, the viscosity is usually difficult to compute. In this talk I will describe how gauge/gravity duality, a by-product of string theory, allows one to compute the viscosity for a class of strongly interacting fluids not too dissimilar to the quark gluon plasma. I will also describe efforts to measure the viscosity and other physical properties of the quark gluon plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.