Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial

Noviembre 7, 2024
De 5:00pm hasta 6:00pm

Blue Room

Specialist level
Location&Place: 

Blue Room

Abstract: 
Michelangelo Tartaglia (IFT) will present:
Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial
(Commun.Math.Phys. 121 (1989) 351-399) de Edward Witten

It is shown that 2+1 dimensional quantum Yang-Mills theory, with an action consisting purely of the Chern-Simons term, is exactly soluble and gives a natural framework for understanding the Jones polynomial of knot theory in three dimensional terms. In this version, the Jones polynomial can be generalized from S3 to arbitrary three manifolds, giving invariants of three manifolds that are computable from a surgery presentation. These results shed a surprising new light on conformal field theory in 1+1 dimensions.