CPT

Calendar of Physics Talks Vienna

Nothing is certain in string compactifications
Speaker:Miguel Montero (Harvard U.)
Abstract: A bubble of nothing is a spacetime instability where a compact dimension collapses. After nucleation, it expands at the speed of light, leaving "nothing" behind. There are a couple of robust mechanisms that can prevent the existence of a bubble: Either it is not energetically favourable to produce them, or there is a topological obstruction to their existence. The latter is often the case with SUSY-preserving boundary conditions. I will explain how to understand the topological obstruction in detail using bordism, which will show that it is very generically absent even for a SUSY-compatible spin structure. [...]
Date: Thu, 18.06.2020
Time: 16:00
Duration: 60 min
Location:online
Contact:Niccolo Cribiori