Simons Workshop in Mathematics and Physics 2005: Talks

(all talks in Math Common Room - Math Tower 4-125 unless otherwise stated)
[RealAudio files can be played with RealPlayer]


July 25, 2005, Monday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Organization meeting
2:00PM - 3:00PM Cumrun Vafa (Harvard) The swamp surrounding the landscape
3:00PM - 4:00PM Math clinic
July 26, 2005, Tuesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Shyamoli Chaudhuri CHL compactifications and beyond
July 27, 2005, Wednesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Dan Kabat (Columbia) String gases and chaos [mp3] [RealAudio]
12:30PM Pizza
July 28, 2005, Thursday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Amir-Kian Kashani-Poor (SLAC) Type IIA flux compactifications [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
6:00PM Dinner at Curry Club
July 29, 2005, Friday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Sanjaye Ramgoolam (QMC) Time-dependent branes, large-small duality, and the Jacobi inversion problem
4:00PM Physics Dept. Keg
August 1, 2005, Monday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Sergei Gukov (Harvard) Asymptotic freedom and the spectral index of string vacua [Handout] [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 2, 2005, Tuesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Albrecht Klemm (Wisconsin) Enumerative geometry on Enrique's surface [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 3, 2005, Wednesday
10:00AM - 4:00PM Cumrun Vafa (Harvard) Black holes and topological strings [mp3] [RealAudio]

(Talk will be at Smith Point Beach (barring rain); leaving Stony Brook at 10:00am. Details to follow.)

August 4, 2005, Thursday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Eva Silverstein (Stanford & SLAC) The Tachyon at the End of the Universe I [mp3] [RealAudio]
August 5, 2005, Friday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Eva Silverstein (Stanford & SLAC) The Tachyon at the End of the Universe II [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
4:00PM Physics Dept. Keg
August 8, 2005, Monday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Andrei Parnachev (Rutgers) Hydrodynamics and String Theory [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 9, 2005, Tuesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Nathan Berkovits (Sao Paolo) Pure Spinor Formalism as an N=2 String [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 10, 2005, Wednesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Edward Witten (IAS) Gauge theory and the Geometric Langlands Program [mp3] [RealAudio]

--Meet here at 10AM--Talk at Smith Point--Strings on the beach! (Details to follow).

August 11, 2005, Thursday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Koenraad Schalm (Columbia) Can cosmological data contain stringy signatures? [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
7:00PM Dinner at Martin Rocek's house (Details to follow)
August 12, 2005, Friday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Juan Maldacena (IAS) 1/2 BPS states and Gravity [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
4:00PM Physics Dept. Keg
August 15, 2005, Monday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Anatoly Dymarsky (Princeton) Double-trace operators in orbifold QFT [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 16, 2005, Tuesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Sergei Gukov (Harvard) Unification of Knot Homologies [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 17, 2005, Wednesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Shing-Tung Yau (Harvard) Superstrings with torsion [mp3] [RealAudio]

--Meet here at 10AM--Talk at Smith Point--Strings on the beach! (Details to follow).

August 18, 2005, Thursday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Sheldon Katz (Illinois) Localization in Gromov-Witten theory via string theory [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
August 19, 2005, Friday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Vasily Pestun (Princeton) The Hitchin functionals and the topological B-model at one loop [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
2:00PM - 4:00PM Minxin Huang (Wisconsin) Testing Dijkgraaf-Vafa conjecture at higher genus [mp3] [RealAudio]
4:30PM Physics Dept. Keg
August 22, 2005, Monday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Chris Beasley (Princeton) New Instanton Effects in String Theory [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]

(Note place change: Math P-131)

2:00PM - 4:00PM Kristian Kennaway (Toronto) Dimer models and quiver gauge theories [mp3] [RealAudio]

(Note place change: Math P-131)

August 23, 2005, Tuesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Michael Douglas (Rutgers and IHÉS) Overview of Vacuum Counting and Selection [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
2:00PM - 4:00PM Leonardo Rastelli (Stony Brook) Minimal superstrings, topological strings and NSF5 branes [mp3] [RealAudio]
August 24, 2005, Wednesday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Hirosi Ooguri (CalTech) The Entropy of Small Black Holes [mp3] [RealAudio]

--Meet here at 10AM--Talk at Smith Point--Strings on the beach! (Details to follow).

August 25, 2005, Thursday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Frederik Denef (Rutgers) Counting open string vacua and the OSV conjecture [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
1:30PM - 2:45PM Dan Freed (Austin) The Uncertainty of Fluxes [mp3] [RealAudio]
2:45PM - 3:00PM snack time
3:00PM - 5:00PM Alexander Braverman (Brown) Instanton counting via affine Lie algebras and quantum groups [mp3] [RealAudio]
August 26, 2005, Friday
10:00AM - 12:00PM Sav Sethi (Chicago) Can Time End? [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]
2:00PM - 4:00PM Misha Movshev (UC Davis) Deformation theory of Yang-Mills algebra [mp3: 1, 2] [RealAudio: 1, 2]

(snack break at 3pm)