Physics of the Categorical Geometric Langlands Correspondence

Seminar: 
Geometry, Symmetry and Physics
Event time: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm
Speaker: 
Philsang Yoo
Speaker affiliation: 
Yale University
Event description: 

The geometric Langlands program arose in the 1980's as an analogue of the Langlands program for algebraic curves, but only recently were Arinkin and Gaitsgory (2012) able to formulate a plausible categorical version of the conjecture. A few years earlier, Kapustin and Witten (2006) placed a version of the categorical conjecture in a physical context, but their work didn't capture the algebro-geometric nature of the conjecture nor did it address the subtleties Arinkin and Gaitsgory had to overcome. After setting up a rigorous mathematical model for Kapustin and Witten's theory, we identify the physics of the Arinkin-Gaitsgory formulation of the conjecture. Moreover, from the physical interpretation, we suggest some curious factorization structure in the geometricLanglands theory. This is based on a joint work with Chris Elliott.