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日時: 2021年5月28日(金) 15:30-16:30
Date: May 28, 2021 15:30-16:30
会場:オンライン開催
Place: Online (Zoom)
立川 裕二 氏（カブリ数物連携宇宙研究機構）
Yuji Tachikawa (Kavli IPMU)
Physics and algebraic topology
講演スライド資料 PDF
Lecture Slides PDF
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.