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Chern-Simons Partition Functions on Handlebodies

Date:
Location:
BL 339
Speaker(s) / Presenter(s):
Cedric Yu (UK)

Chern-Simons theory has received renewed interest recently due to its appearance in gravity toy models in three-dimensional spacetime. To explore possible holographic correspondence, a first check would be to compute the partition functions on handlebodies. As Euclidean path integrals, semi-classically they may receive contributions from complex saddle points. To explore the roles played by these saddles, it is important to find their one-loop contributions. In this talk, we discuss a direct computation of Chern-Simons path integrals of various gauge groups, notably Abelian and PSL(2,C), on the solid torus. We discuss the subtlety in the steepest descent paths and analytical continuation.

 

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