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SUMMARY:Wilson Surface Central Charge from Holography - Andy O'Bannon\, So
 uthampton
DTSTART:20190213T141500Z
DTEND:20190213T151500Z
UID:TALK119134@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Francesca Chadha-Day
DESCRIPTION:M-theory is currently our best candidate for a theory of every
 thing\, but remains mysterious. We know M-theory has M2- and M5-branes. Th
 e low-energy theory on a stack of coincident M2-branes is well-understood:
  it is maximally supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter theory. However\, the 
 low-energy theory on a stack of coincident M5-branes remains poorly-unders
 tood: it is a maximally supersymmetric theory of self-dual strings with ze
 ro tension. In this talk I will discuss one type of probe of the M5-brane 
 theory\, namely self-dual strings with infinite tension. These play a role
  analogous to Wilson lines in gauge theories\, but are two-dimensional sur
 faces rather than lines\, and hence are called Wilson surfaces. I will des
 cribe holographic calculations of entanglement entropy associated with Wil
 son surfaces from which we extract a key parameter characterizing them\, n
 amely their central charge. This provides a count of the number of massles
 s degrees of freedom living on them\, and thus may shed light on some of t
 he fundamental degrees of freedom of M-theory. Along the way I will summar
 ize recent developments in studying two-dimensional defects in conformal f
 ield theories more generally.
LOCATION:MR2\, Centre for Mathematical Sciences
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