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Gravity from Averaging CFTs

Date:
Speaker(s) / Presenter(s):
Alexander Maloney (McGill)

Abstract:

 

I will explore the idea that certain theories of gravity in Anti-de
Sitter space are dual to an average over an ensemble of quantum
theories, rather than to a specific quantum theory.  I will describe
an average over Narain’s family of two-dimensional conformal field
theories which describe free bosons on a torus, and compute the
partition function using the Siegel-Weil formula.  The result takes
the form of a sum over geometries as one would expect in a theory of
gravity.  But the gravitational theory looks more like a Chern-Simons
theory than like Einstein gravity.

 

Zoom: https://uky.zoom.us/j/94475622713

 

Recording: https://uky.zoom.us/rec/share/QQujHqM5YhGd-8VMLiGw6DUPPftssuHC4vi3h_n-x27Jwbc-wBTtv5TIxvEdpxzg.EVGdktXNhdQIWDgV

Event Series: