Related papers: The Categorical 't Hooft Expansion
The goal of this work is to describe a categorical formalism for (Extended) Topological Quantum Field Theories (TQFTs) and present them as functors from a suitable category of cobordisms with corners to a linear category, generalizing 2d…
Matrix string theory is equivalent to type IIA superstring theory in the light-cone gauge, together with extra degrees of freedom representing D-brane states. It is therefore the appropriate framework in which to study systems of multiple…
The $T \bar T$ deformation of a 2 dimensional field theory living on a curved spacetime is equivalent to coupling the undeformed field theory to 2 dimensional `ghost-free' massive gravity. We derive the equivalence classically, and using a…
We develop a procedure that reorganizes the perturbative expansion in a class of quantum field theories into a stringy amplitude expressed as a sum over two-dimensional geometries. Using Schwinger parametrization and the one-to-one…
Double-trace deformations of the AdS/CFT duality result in a new perturbation expansion for string theory, based on a non-local worldsheet. We discuss some aspects of the deformation in the low energy gravity approximation, where it appears…
We recently introduced a T-duality covariant mechanism to compute all-order higher-derivative interactions in the heterotic string. Here we extend the formalism to account for a two-parameter family of corrections that also include the…
We consider coupling an ordinary quantum field theory with an infinite number of degrees of freedom to a topological field theory. On R^d the new theory differs from the original one by the spectrum of operators. Sometimes the local…
Homotopy Quantum Field Theories (HQFTs) were introduced by the second author to extend the ideas and methods of Topological Quantum Field Theories to closed $d$-manifolds endowed with extra structure in the form of homotopy classes of maps…
We generalize the worldsheet derivation of the topological open/closed string duality given in hep-th/0205297 to cases when there are different types of D branes on the open string side. We use the mirror Landau-Ginzburg description to…
We discuss in detail the $1+1$-dimensional superconformal field theory dual to type II string theory on $AdS_3\times S^3\times T^4$, emphasizing the string theoretic aspects of this duality. For one unit of NS-NS 5-brane flux ($Q_5=1$),…
In this work, we extend a 2d topological gravity model of Marolf and Maxfield to have as its bulk action any open/closed TQFT obeying Atiyah's axioms. The holographic duals of these topological gravity models are ensembles of 1d topological…
Recent advances in the off-shell formulation of the Double Copy (DC) procedure have revealed a profound connection between gauge theories and T-duality invariant frameworks. The main example is Double Field Theory (DFT), emerging as the the…
The global symmetries of a $D$-dimensional QFT can, in many cases, be captured in terms of a $(D+1)$-dimensional symmetry topological field theory (SymTFT). In this work we construct a $(D+1)$-dimensional theory which governs the symmetries…
This PhD Thesis is devoted to the study of Hodge structures on a special type of complex algebraic varieties, the so-called character varieties. For this purpose, we propose to use a powerful algebro-geometric tool coming from theoretical…
We investigate boundary dynamics of orbifold conformal field theory involving T-duality twists. Such models typically appear in contexts of non-geometric string compactifications that are called monodrofolds or T-folds in recent literature.…
We present a string theory that reproduces the large-$N$ expansion of two dimensional Yang-Mills gauge theory on arbitrary surfaces. First, a new class of topological sigma models is introduced, with path integrals localized to the moduli…
We study global worldsheet anomalies for open strings ending on several coincident D-branes in the presence of a B-field. We show that cancellation of anomalies is made possible by a correlation between the t'Hooft magnetic flux on the…
Originally proposed as an $O(d,d)$-invariant formulation of classical closed string theory, double field theory (DFT) offers a rich source of mathematical structures. Most prominently, its gauge algebra is determined by the so-called…
The symmetry data of a $d$-dimensional quantum field theory (QFT) can often be captured in terms of a higher-dimensional symmetry topological field theory (SymTFT). In top down (i.e., stringy) realizations of this structure, the QFT in…
This elementary survey article was prepared for a talk at the 2016 Superschool on Derived Categories and D-branes. The goal is to outline an identification of the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on a Calabi-Yau threefold with…