Weinberg Institute Brown Bag with Alex Lu (Qualifying Exam)

Abstract: We investigate the interesting connection between math and physics through generalized symmetries. The surge of interest in generalized symmetries over the past years has motivated a better understanding of category theory in an effort to understand symmetries in quantum field theory. We specifically focus on generalized symmetries of 2-dimensional rational conformal field theories in the context of the string worldsheet. We will review the categorical interpretation of rational conformal field theories and apply them to open string theory via boundary state formalism. We then interpret these boundary states as D-brane and O-plane states in which we demonstrate how one can compute open string amplitudes in terms of the categorical data.