"Phases of Conformal Field Theory at Higher Genus, Modular Bootstrap and Entanglement Entropy"

Speaker: Alexander Maloney, McGill University

When: May 9, 2018 (Wed), 04:00PM to 05:00PM (add to my calendar)
Location: PRB 595

This event is part of the HET Seminar Series.

Two dimensional conformal field theories are among the most important quantum field theories: they describe important statistical and condensed matter systems near criticality, and -- while not exactly solvable -- many exact techniques can be used which are not available in higher dimensions. I will consider these theories defined on surfaces of genus g>1, where the partition function of the theory can be interpreted as an entanglement Renyi entropy. This leads to a fascinating relationship between (higher genus) modular invariance and information theory. I will describe novel uses of higher genus modular invariance to constrain the structure constants of the theory. I will also discuss a new class of phase transitions which occur in holographic CFTs, which imply that Renyi entropies are not analytic functions of the Renyi parameter.