Title: Black holes in string theory and modular forms

Speaker: Sameer Murthy (KCL)

Time: 11:30-12:05 (GMT+0), 2021.08.03

Abstract:

In the 1970s Bekenstein and Hawking discovered that black holes in general relativity carry thermodynamic entropy. The Boltzmann formula then implies that black holes should be made up of a large number of microscopic states. I will discuss the problem of enumerating these microstates in string theory, and interesting and surprising relations to the mathematics of modular forms that arise from this idea.