High Energy Theory Seminar

Friday, October 17, 2025

11:00am to 12:00pm

Online and In-Person Event

Triangulating Quantum Gravity in AdS_3

Tom Hartman, Cornell University,

I will discuss the path integral of pure 3D gravity on a finite region of spacetime, with boundary conditions that fix dihedral angles or geodesic lengths. This amplitude calculates corrections to the Gaussian statistics of OPE coefficients in the dual CFT. The fixed-length path integral is related to Virasoro TQFT; the fixed-angle path integral is the partition function of Conformal Turaev-Viro theory, a novel topological theory based on triangulations; and the two are related by a modular S-transform. This leads to a general procedure to calculate the exact path integral on hyperbolic 3-manifolds by gluing together generalized tetrahedra. I will also discuss potential applications to higher dimensions and de Sitter.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

Contact [email protected] for Zoom information.

For more information, please visit http://www.theory.caltech.edu/seminars/high-energy-theory-seminars.

Event Series

High Energy Theory Seminar Series

Event Sponsors

Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy More Events from this Sponsor

Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics More Events from this Sponsor