Higgs bundle metrics, QFT and higher symmetries

Seminar: 
Geometry, Symmetry and Physics
Event time: 
Monday, September 21, 2020 - 4:30pm
Location: 
https://yale.zoom.us/j/99433355937 (password was emailed by Ivan on 9/11, also available from Andy by email)
Speaker: 
Andrew Neitzke
Speaker affiliation: 
Yale
Event description: 

I will briefly review a conjectural picture of the hyperkahler metrics on moduli spaces of Higgs bundles which arose from quantum field theory, and then describe some recent progress toward proving these conjectures; this is work of various people including Mazzeo-Swoboda-Weiss-Witt, Fredrickson, Dumas-N, Fredrickson-N. A recent surprise is that for Higgs bundles of rank > 2, one needs to use “higher symmetries” which generalize the covariance of Higgs bundles under holomorphic vector fields.

Research Area(s):