BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Spacetime and Quantum Mechanics\, Particles and Strings\, Polytope
 s and Binary Geometries - Nima Arkani-Hamed (Institute for Advanced Study\
 , School of Natural Sciences)
DTSTART:20211108T161500Z
DTEND:20211108T164500Z
UID:TALK164758@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:The past decade has seen the emergence of surprising new conne
 ctions between the real-world physics of elementary particle scattering pr
 ocesses\, and the notion of "positive geometries"\, linking combinatorics\
 , algebra and geometry in interesting new ways\, and involving a number of
  appearances of total positivity and cluster structure.&nbsp\; These ideas
  provide\, in a number of examples\, a different starting point for concep
 tualizing this physics\, where the fundamental principles of spacetime and
  quantum mechanics are not taken as primary\, but instead emerge from a mo
 re primitive mathematical rubric. In this talk I will illustrate these ide
 as in their simplest setting\, showing how the most basic particle scatter
 ing amplitudes are determined by "surfacehedra"\, certain generalizations 
 of associahedra and finite-type cluster polytopes\,&nbsp\; associated with
  any surface. I will also describe how the combinatorial relationships cap
 tured by the facets of these polytopes remarkably admit a "curvy" realizat
 ion in terms of "binary geometries"\, which provides a global description 
 of the boundary structure of teichmuller space\, and has the physical inte
 rpretation of generalizing from particle to string scattering".&nbsp\;
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR