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Friday, September 18, 2009 - 2:00pm

Josh Guffin

Upenn

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4C4

Note time change from original email annoucement

This seminar will focus on the physics and mathematics underlying gauged linear sigma models, with the goal of understanding the monomial-divisor mirror map for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces. Broadly speaking, we will cover: - Toric Geometry - Crash-course on toric varieties - Sheaves & Sheaf cohomology on toric varieties - Toric Residues (alg-geom/9410017) and mirror symmetry (math/0203216) - GLSMs - Crash-course in QFT - Phases of N=2 Theories In Two Dimensions (hep-th/9301042) - Summing the Instantons... (hep-th/9412236) Students from both the mathematics and physics departments are encouraged to participate. The student-given talks will aim to develop a healthy mix of the abstract (sheaf cohomology & residues) and the concrete (computing correlators in twisted theories) in a way that is accessible to beginning graduate students and useful for older students as well.