Theory Group Seminars - Fall 2007


Tuesday Seminars:
All talks are on Tuesdays, at 2 PM, in RLM 7.104, unless otherwise noted.
Date:Speaker and Title:
9/4 Akikazu Hashimoto, UW-Madison,
"Cosmology to topological field theory: k-essence to BF, and back again"
9/11 Saswat Sarangi, Columbia University,
"DBI Wrinkled Instantons and Cosmology"
Abstract
9/18 Katrin Becker, Texas A&M,
"Moduli Stabilization and String Geometry"
9/25 TBD
10/02 TBD
10/09 Ben Burrington, Tel Aviv U.,
"Backreacted Flavor Branes in Holographic QCD"
10/16 Alex Maloney, McGill,
"Quantum Gravity in Three Dimensions"
10/23 Natalia Saulina, Caltech,
"The Algebra of Wilson-'t Hooft Operators"
Abstract
10/25 Thomas Grimm, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Universitiy of Bonn
"Axion Inflation in Type II String Theory"
Thursday, 2:00PM Note: This seminar is in lieu of this week's Brown Bag.
10/30 Radu Roiban, Penn State,
"Is a Finite Point-Like Theory of Quantum Gravity Possible?"
11/06 Hans Jockers, Stanford,
"Matrix factorizations in Landau-Ginzburg models and D-brane monodromies"
11/13 David Shih, Institute for Advanced Study,
"The Phenomenology of (Extra)Ordinary Gauge Mediation"
11/20 Thanksgiving Holiday Week
11/27 Leonardo Senatore, Harvard,
"The Effective Field Theory of Inflation"
Abstract
12/04 Sean Hartnoll, KITP,
"Tabletop AdS/CFT: from black holes to superconductors"
Abstract
12/06 Amihay Hanany, MIT,
"Baryonic Moduli Spaces and Counting Chiral Gauge Invariant Operators"
Abstract

Physics Colloquium and Other Talks of Interest
All talks are on Wednesdays, at 4:15 PM, in 4.102, unless otherwise noted.
Date:Speaker and Title:
11/8 THEORY GROUP FINAL DEFENSE: Ms. Marija Zanic, UT-Austin, "Bubble Propagation in Gravitationally Inhomogeneous Backgrounds" Thursday, 2:00 PM, RLM 7.104 (In lieu of the Brown Bag this week.)

Brown Bag Meetings
All meetings are on Thursdays, from 12:30 to 1:30 PM, in RLM 9.202, unless otherwise noted.
Note: These meetings will consist, typically, of a short talk on current research or other matters of interest to the group, followed by an open discussion. The emphasis is on the open discussion, so meeting agendas might not be regularly announced.
Date:Speaker and Title:
8/30 Organizational Meeting
9/6 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
9/13 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
9/20 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
9/27 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
10/04 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
10/11 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
10/18 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
10/25 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
11/1 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
11/8 THEORY GROUP FINAL DEFENSE: Ms. Marija Zanic, UT-Austin, "Bubble Propagation in Gravitationally Inhomogeneous Backgrounds" (In lieu of the Brown Bag this week.)
11/15 Members of the Theory Group discuss their work
11/22 Thanksgiving Holiday
11/29 No Brown Bag this week.
12/6 Amihay Hanany seminar in lieu of the Brown Bag this week.

Geometry and String Theory Seminars
All talks are on Wednesdays, at 1:00 P.M., in RLM 9.166, unless otherwise noted.
Note:These talks are also often scheduled on a short notice, so these listings may not be up to date. See the Geometry and String Theory Calendar.for the latest schedule.
Date:Speaker and Title:
8/29 Organizational Meeting
9/5 Dr. Kevin Costello, Northwestern University Department of Mathematics, "Renormalization of certain quantum field theories"
9/12 Topics of interest to Physicists and Mathematicians
9/19 Topics of interest to Physicists and Mathematicians
9/26 "Orientifolds and twisted KR-theory," by Jacques Distler (UT Austin-Phys. Dept.)
10/03 "Introduction to Schramm-Loewner evolution," by Lorenzo Sadun (UT Austin)
10/10 Introduction to Kuranishi bordism and Kuranishi homology (after Joyce) by Dan Freed (UT Austin)
10/17 There is no seminar this week. Next week Sean Keel will speak.
10/24 Topics of interest to Physicists and Mathematicians
10/31 Dr. Eric Katz, UT-Austin Department of Mathematics, TBA
11/7 Daniel Robbins, UT-Austin, "T-Folds, Cohomology, and K-Theory"
11/14 "Geometry and Strings: Three dimensional gravity revisited (after Witten)," by Jacques Distler (UT Austin - Physics Department)
11/28 Prof. Dan Freed, UT-Austin Department of Mathematics, "Trivializations of determinant line bundles"
12/12 Topics of interest to Physicists and Mathematicians
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