BPS invariants in geometry and physics

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• Sven Meinhardt, University of Sheffield
• Tuesday 12 November 2019, 14:30-15:30
• Watson (Mathematics) Room 310.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Timothy Magee.

Note the unusual room

BPS indices were first introduced in physics as a count of ‚short‘ irreducible representations of a supersymmetric extension of the well-known 4-dimensional Lorentz group occurring in special relativity. String theorists suggested to compute these numbers by counting D-branes living in the hidden 6 dimensions of 10-dimensional spacetime. This idea has been made more precise by many mathematicians in the last 20 years and is nowadays known as Donaldson-Thomas theory. In my talks I will sketch the main ideas of Donaldson-Thomas theory and report on recent results obtained in collaboration with Ben Davison. Starting with the problem of counting D-branes, we will introduce BPS invariants and the Hall algebra leading to a categorification of BPS invariants. If time permits, the relation to physics and cluster transformations will be explained.

This talk is part of the Geometry and Mathematical Physics seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Bham Talks
• Geometry and Mathematical Physics seminar
• School of Mathematics events
• Watson (Mathematics) Room 310

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