談話会・数理科学講演会

過去の記録 ~03/28次回の予定今後の予定 03/29~

担当者 阿部紀行、岩木耕平、河澄響矢(委員長)、小池祐太
セミナーURL https://www.ms.u-tokyo.ac.jp/seminar/colloquium/index.html

2021年05月28日(金)

15:30-16:30   オンライン開催
参加登録を締め切りました(5月28日12:00)。
立川 裕二 氏 (カブリ数物連携宇宙研究機構)
Physics and algebraic topology (ENGLISH)
[ 講演概要 ]
Although we often talk about the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences", there are great disparities in the relevance of various subbranches of mathematics to individual fields of natural sciences. Algebraic topology was a subject whose influence to physics remained relatively minor for a long time, but in the last several years, theoretical physicists started to appreciate the effectiveness of algebraic topology more seriously. For example, there is now a general consensus that the classification of the symmetry-protected topological phases, which form a class of phases of matter with a certain particularly simple property, is done in terms of generalized cohomology theories.

In this talk, I would like to provide a historical overview of the use of algebraic topology in physics, emphasizing a few highlights along the way. If the time allows, I would also like to report my struggle to understand the anomaly of heterotic strings, using the theory of topological modular forms.