MS Seminar (Mathematics - String Theory)

Speaker: Daniel Harlow (Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, Harvard U)
Title: Wormholes, Emergent Gauge Fields, and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
Date (JST): Tue, Jan 19, 2016, 13:15 - 14:45
Place: Seminar Room A
Abstract: It has long been believed that the consistency of quantum gravity puts nontrivial constraints on electromagnetism that are invisible to semiclassical perturbation theory. In this talk I will present a paradox in AdS/CFT whose resolution seems to require three such constraints: the existence of charge states, the complete population of the charge lattice, and the weak gravity conjecture. This resolution clarifies what the weak gravity conjecture should mean, and it illustrates the high-energy sensitivity of seemingly low-energy physics in quantum gravity.