This is a reading group hosted by first-year Particle Theory PhD students focusing on the AdS/CFT correspondence. The main reference book for the reading group is Horatiu Nastase's "Introduction to AdS-CFT Correspondence" published by the Cambridge University Press. If you have an SSO account for Oxford you will be able to access the book from Cambridge Core website. You can also find a set of lecture notes on ArXiV.
We meet every Thursdays at 1400 in the Beecroft Building during term time. Outside term time the meeting time varies. If you wish to join, please email Lucas Leung at lucas.leung@physics.ox.ac.uk .
This is the preliminary schedule of the reading group. It will be updated as the term evolves. All quoted references are from Nastase.
There will be an assigned speaker/ leader per session. The speaker will be responsible for leading the discussion but they need not understand all the material fully. Rather, they might choose to raise up questions to be discussed in the group. The other members are expected to also read the relevant sections of the book and try and understand the material the best they can as well before they turn up to the discussions as well!
| Week / Date | Topic | Details | Leader | Main Reference Section |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 Hilary / 20 Jan | Basics of GR, AdS Space | Asymptotically-free spaces, Penrose diagrams, Dynamics | Ethan | Section 2 |
| Week 2 / 27 Jan | Kaluza-Klein Dimensional Reduction | Basics of KK dimensional reduction, examples on tori, ansatz, symmetries | Martin | Section 5 |
| Week 3 / 3 Feb | Conformal Field Theory | Basics of CFT, conformal fields, correlators, spectra | Davide | Section 8 |
| Week 4 / 10 Feb | SUSY | Basics of SUSY, Superspace and Superfields | Lucas | Section 3-4.3 |
| Week 8 / 7 Mar | Superstring Theory (I) | Formulation of superstring theory, SCFTs | Martin | Section 7 |
| Week 9 / 14 Mar | Superstring Theory (II) | The 5 superstring theories. Dualities. | Martin | Section 7 |
| Week 10 / 21 Mar | Introduction to D Branes | T dualities. Chan-Paton factors. D branes from open strings. Dp-brane tension. | Lucas | Section 9 |
| Week 4 Trinity / 17 May | Clifford Algebras | Clifford algebras, spin and pin groups | Martin | N/A |
| Week 6 / 1 Jun | Supergravity | Gravitino multiplet. Construction of SUGRA theories. Coupling to Chiral Matter. Gauged SUGRA. SUGRA in different dimensions. | Lucas | Section 4 |
| Week 7 / 8 Jun | D branes (again) | D branes as SUGRA solitonic solutions. DBI action (low-ebergy effective action). | Lars | 9Section |
| Week 8 / 15 Jun | Basics of AdS/CFT (I) | Motivation. Definition. Spectra. | Ethan | Section 10 |
| Week 9 / 22 Jun | Basics of AdS/CFT (II) | Motivation. Definition. Spectra. | Ethan | Section 10 |
| Week 10 / 29 Jun | Witten Prescription and 3-point Correlation Functions | Witten prescription, Two-point and three-point correlation functions | Lars | Section 11 |
| Week 12 / 13 Jul | Field-Operator Correspondence and Correlation Functions & Lorentzian Holography | Details of the field-operator correspondecne, correlation functions. Holography in the Lorentzian signature. | Lucas | Section 10-12 |
| Week 13 / 20 Jul | TBC | TBC | Lucas | Section 13 |
| Week 14 / 27 Jul | TBC | TBC | Lucas | Section 14 |
Here are some references and some descriptions of the references used in several topics in addition to the suggested book. (Work in progress!)