String Theory Seminars

Thermal equivariance and its applications (Tata-Infosys Lecture Series)

by Prof. Mukund Rangamani (University of California, Davis)

Thursday, December 7, 2017 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at A304
Description
I will describe how techniques from topological field theory and equivariant cohomology find a role in physical problems. I will define the notion of thermal equivariance which will involve gauging thermal diffeomorphisms, and argue that these constructions naturally lead to entropy being interpretable as a Noether current.  I will outline an application to constructing dissipative hydrodynamic effective actions, reproducing previously known facts about the admissible constitutive relations.
Material: