This series of lectures is planned as a generalization of author's large (more than fifteen years) experience of work in the theoretical physics. The modern theoretical physics is based on the group-theoretical approach which generates the formalism of the principal fibre bundles and the instanton approach. The latter is based on the Pontrjagin's degree of map theorem and this theorem is the original ``bridge'' between homology and cohomology theories. The author plans to devote his two first lectures to fibre bundle theory: this is the foundation on which the modern physics rests -- the theory of gauge groups and the Yang-Mills fields. The idea of connection and curvature (first of all for the principal fibre bundles) will be given also. The lectures are devoted to the Pontrjagin's degree of map theorem, to the theories of monopoles and instantons, to the theory of the topological index of the elliptical operator. The information accumulated to this moment allows us to apply these theories to some questions of conformal anomalies and to the topological aspects of QCD. More comprehensive questions of modern topology (for example the algebraic (co)homology theories, the theory of the spectral sequences) will be expounded in the further lectures.
Lecture notes for the course "Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism and applications in topological quantum field theory" given at the University of Notre Dame in the Fall 2016 for a mathematical audience. In these lectures we give a slow introduction to the perturbative path integral for gauge theories in Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism and the associated mathematical concepts.
These third-year lecture notes are designed for a 1-semester course in topological quantum field theory (TQFT). Assumed background in mathematics and physics are only standard second-year subjects: multivariable calculus, introduction to quantum mechanics and basic electromagnetism. Keywords: quantum mechanics/field theory, path integral, Hodge decomposition, Chern-Simons and Yang-Mills gauge theories, conformal field theory
In this series of lectures a method is developed to compute one-loop shifts to classical masses of kinks, multi-component kinks, and self-dual vortices. Canonical quantization is used to show that the mass shift induced by one-loop quantum fluctuations is the trace of the square root of the differential operator governing these fluctuations. Standard mathematical techniques are used to deal with some powers of pseudo-differential operators. Ultraviolet divergences are tamed by using generalized zeta function regularization methods and, then performing zero-point energy and mass renormalization…
This is an unrefereed lecture note based on lectures in 'Introductory Workshop on Discrete Differential Geometry' at Korea University on January 21--24, 2019. In this note, we discuss topological crystallography, which is a mathematical theory of crystal structures. The most symmetric structure among all placements of the graph is obtained by a variational principle in topological crystallography. We also discuss a theory of trivalent discrete surfaces in $3$-dimensional Euclidean space, which are mathematical models of crystal/molecular structures.
These notes offer a lightening introduction to topological quantum field theory in its functorial axiomatisation, assuming no or little prior exposure. We lay some emphasis on the connection between the path integral motivation and the definition in terms symmetric monoidal categories, and we highlight the algebraic formulation emerging from a formal generators-and-relations description. This allows one to understand (oriented, closed) 1- and 2-dimensional TQFTs in terms of a finite amount of algebraic data, while already the 3-dimensional case needs an infinite amount of data. We evade these …
In these lecture proceedings, we describe some of the fundamental mathematical concepts that underlie supersymmetric string theory and field theory, and their role in describing and testing dualities. In particular, we provide a pedagogical introduction to topological and holomorphic twisting, descent, and higher algebraic structures. Our primary examples are worldsheet theories of topological strings, namely the A- and B-models, which we briefly review. These proceedings are based on lectures given by the second author at TASI 2021.
These are notes from an informal mini-course on factorization homology, infinity-categories, and topological field theories. The target audience was imagined to be graduate students who are not homotopy theorists.
These notes contain a survey of some aspects of the theory of graded differential algebras and of noncommutative differential calculi as well as of some applications connected with physics. They also give a description of several new developments.
These notes contain a survey of some aspects of the theory of differential modules and complexes as well as of their generalization, that is, the theory of $N$-differential modules and $N$-complexes. Several applications and examples coming from physics are discussed. The commun feature of these physical applications is that they deal with the theory of constrained or gauge systems. In particular different aspects of the BRS methods are explained and a detailed account of the $N$-complexes arising in the theory of higher spin gauge fields is given.
The paper aims at giving an introduction to the notion of quantum curves. The main purpose is to describe the new discovery of the relation between the following two disparate subjects: one is the topological recursion, that has its origin in random matrix theory and has been effectively applied to many enumerative geometry problems; and the other is the quantization of Hitchin spectral curves associated with Higgs bundles. Our emphasis is on explaining the motivation and examples. Concrete examples of the direct relation between Hitchin spectral curves and enumeration problems are given. A ge…
((1+1)-dimensional ${\cal N}=1$ super-symmetric field theory and (3+1)-dimensional ${\cal N}=2$ super-symmetric gauge theory are discussed in a, more or less, unified way, designed to identify the quantum BPS states in both systems. Euclidean 4-dimensional gauge theory with ${\cal N}=2$ twisted super-symmetry is also analized. ${\bf C}^\infty$-topological invariants are identified as certain n-point correlation functions in this QFT framework. The twist of the effective dual Abelian gauge theory is briefly described, both from mathematical and physical viewpoints. The physical nature of the to…
We review some essential aspects of classically integrable systems. The detailed outline of the lectures consists of: 1. Introduction and motivation, with historical remarks; 2. Liouville theorem and action-angle variables, with examples (harmonic oscillator, Kepler problem); 3. Algebraic tools: Lax pairs, monodromy and transfer matrices, classical r-matrices and exchange relations, non-ultralocal Poisson brackets, with examples (non-linear Schroedinger model, principal chiral field); 4. Features of classical r-matrices: Belavin-Drinfeld theorems, analyticity properties, and lift of the classi…
In these lectures I present a review of non-perturbative instanton effects in quantum theories, with a focus on large N gauge theories and matrix models. I first consider the structure of these effects in the case of ordinary differential equations, which provide a model for more complicated theories, and I introduce in a pedagogical way some technology from resurgent analysis, like trans-series and the resurgent version of the Stokes phenomenon. After reviewing instanton effects in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, I address general aspects of large N instantons and then present a d…
In this series of lectures directed towards a mainly mathematically oriented audience I try to motivate the use of operator algebra methods in quantum field theory. Therefore a title as ``why mathematicians are/should be interested in algebraic quantum field theory'' would be equally fitting. Besides a presentation of the framework and the main results of local quantum physics these notes may serve as a guide to some frontier research problems in mathematical physics with applications in particle and condensed matter physics for whose solution operator algebraic methods seem indispensable. The…
These are expanded lecture notes from lectures given at the Workshop on higher structures at MATRIX Melbourne. These notes give an introduction to Feynman categories and their applications. Feynman categories give a universal categorical way to encode operations and relations. This includes the aspects of operad--like theories such as PROPs, modular operads, twisted (modular) operads, properads, hyperoperads and their colored versions. There is more depth to the general theory as it applies as well to algebras over operads and an abundance of other related structures, such as crossed simplicia…
These draft notes are from a graduate course given by the author in Berkeley during the spring semester of 2005. They cover the basic ideas of a new, geometric approach to geometric measure theory. They begin with a new theory of exterior calculus at a single point. This infinitesimal theory extends, by linearity, to a discrete exterior theory, based at finitely many points. A general theory of calculus culminates by taking limits in Banach spaces, and is valid for domains called ``chainlets'' which are defined to be elements of the Banach spaces. Chainlets include manifolds, rough domains (e.…
These are the lecture notes from a course given in July 2005 at the summer school in Les Houches. We describe some recent results concerning two-dimensional conformally invariant systems. In particular, we discuss conformally invariant measures on loops and conformal loop-ensembles (CLE).
These are lecture notes on Floer and Rabinowitz-Floer homology written for a graduate course at UNICAMP August-December 2016 and a mini-course held at IMPA in August 2017.
