Quantum field theory is a ubiquitous framework to describe a wide variety of physical phenomena. The applicability of QFT ranges from very high energies (models of particle physics) to low energies (condensed matter and statistical physics systems). One of the main challenges in understanding better QFTs is to get a better grip on strong coupling dynamics. If a model is in a regime where the relevant couplings are not small, the textbook definitions of the QFT using weakly coupled fields, Lagrangians, and perturbative expansion are insufficient to understand the dynamics. There is thus a need to find novel ways of thinking about QFTs which go beyond the weak coupling paradigm.
In recent years, building on the confluence of ideas from various research directions, an alternative way to think about QFTs, and especially supersymmetric QFTs (SQFTs), has emerged. The new paradigm can be roughly characterized as geometrization of quantum field theory. Incarnations of this idea include among others: geometry of spaces of couplings and spaces of vacua, engineering lower dimensional QFTs as geometric compactifications of higher dimensional ones, generalized symmetries and their anomalies, holographic constructions of QFTs, and stringy constructions.
The time is ripe to bring together the large international community working on the formal aspects of QFTs for a conference centered on these ideas in the winter of 2022.
Apply at:
aspenphys.org/physicists/winter/currentconferences.html
Organizers:
Ibrahima Bah, John Hopkins University
Jonathan Heckman, University of Pennsylvania
Ken Intriligator, University of California, San Diego
Sara Pasquetti, University of Milano-Bicocca
Shlomo S. Razamat, Technion