Ten years after a 1989 meeting of number theorists and physicists at the Centre de Physique des Houches, a second event focused on the broader interface of number theory, geometry, and physics. This book is the first of two volumes resulting from that meeting. Broken into three parts, it covers Conformal Field Theories, Discrete Groups, and Renormalization, offering extended versions of the lecture courses and shorter texts on special topics.
This text (together with a forthcoming second volume) presents most of the courses and seminars delivered at the meeting entitled "Frontiers in number theory, physics and geometry" which took place at the Centre de Physique des Houches in the French Alps, March 9-12, 2003.
This book is a collection of articles written in memory of Boris Dubrovin (1950–2019). The authors express their admiration for his remarkable personality and for the contributions he made to mathematical physics. For many of the authors, Dubrovin was a friend, colleague, inspiring mentor, and teacher. The contributions to this collection of papers are split into two parts: “Integrable Systems” and “Quantum Theories and Algebraic Geometry”, reflecting the areas of main scientific interests of Dubrovin. Chronologically, these interests may be divided into several parts: integrable systems, integrable systems of hydrodynamic type, WDVV equations (Frobenius manifolds), isomonodromy equations (flat connections), and quantum cohomology. The articles included in the first part are more or less directly devoted to these areas (primarily with the first three listed above). The second part contains articles on quantum theories and algebraic geometry and is less directly connected with Dubrovin's early interests.
The unifying theme of this book is the interplay among noncommutative geometry, physics, and number theory. The two main objects of investigation are spaces where both the noncommutative and the motivic aspects come to play a role: space-time, where the guiding principle is the problem of developing a quantum theory of gravity, and the space of primes, where one can regard the Riemann Hypothesis as a long-standing problem motivating the development of new geometric tools. The book stresses the relevance of noncommutative geometry in dealing with these two spaces. The first part of the book deals with quantum field theory and the geometric structure of renormalization as a Riemann-Hilbert correspondence. It also presents a model of elementary particle physics based on noncommutative geometry. The main result is a complete derivation of the full Standard Model Lagrangian from a very simple mathematical input. Other topics covered in the first part of the book are a noncommutative geometry model of dimensional regularization and its role in anomaly computations, and a brief introduction to motives and their conjectural relation to quantum field theory. The second part of the book gives an interpretation of the Weil explicit formula as a trace formula and a spectral realization of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function. This is based on the noncommutative geometry of the adèle class space, which is also described as the space of commensurability classes of Q-lattices, and is dual to a noncommutative motive (endomotive) whose cyclic homology provides a general setting for spectral realizations of zeros of L-functions. The quantum statistical mechanics of the space of Q-lattices, in one and two dimensions, exhibits spontaneous symmetry breaking. In the low-temperature regime, the equilibrium states of the corresponding systems are related to points of classical moduli spaces and the symmetries to the class field theory of the field of rational numbers and of imaginary quadratic fields, as well as to the automorphisms of the field of modular functions. The book ends with a set of analogies between the noncommutative geometries underlying the mathematical formulation of the Standard Model minimally coupled to gravity and the moduli spaces of Q-lattices used in the study of the zeta function.
This book presents recent and ongoing research work aimed at understanding the mysterious relation between the computations of Feynman integrals in perturbative quantum field theory and the theory of motives of algebraic varieties and their periods. One of the main questions in the field is understanding when the residues of Feynman integrals in perturbative quantum field theory evaluate to periods of mixed Tate motives. The question originates from the occurrence of multiple zeta values in Feynman integrals calculations observed by Broadhurst and Kreimer.Two different approaches to the subject are described. The first, a ?bottom-up? approach, constructs explicit algebraic varieties and periods from Feynman graphs and parametric Feynman integrals. This approach, which grew out of work of Bloch?Esnault?Kreimer and was more recently developed in joint work of Paolo Aluffi and the author, leads to algebro-geometric and motivic versions of the Feynman rules of quantum field theory and concentrates on explicit constructions of motives and classes in the Grothendieck ring of varieties associated to Feynman integrals. While the varieties obtained in this way can be arbitrarily complicated as motives, the part of the cohomology that is involved in the Feynman integral computation might still be of the special mixed Tate kind. A second, ?top-down? approach to the problem, developed in the work of Alain Connes and the author, consists of comparing a Tannakian category constructed out of the data of renormalization of perturbative scalar field theories, obtained in the form of a Riemann?Hilbert correspondence, with Tannakian categories of mixed Tate motives. The book draws connections between these two approaches and gives an overview of other ongoing directions of research in the field, outlining the many connections of perturbative quantum field theory and renormalization to motives, singularity theory, Hodge structures, arithmetic geometry, supermanifolds, algebraic and non-commutative geometry.The text is aimed at researchers in mathematical physics, high energy physics, number theory and algebraic geometry. Partly based on lecture notes for a graduate course given by the author at Caltech in the fall of 2008, it can also be used by graduate students interested in working in this area.
This collection of expository articles grew out of the workshop ``Number Theory and Physics'' held in March 2009 at The Erwin Schrodinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics, Vienna. The common theme of the articles is the influence of ideas from noncommutative geometry (NCG) on subjects ranging from number theory to Lie algebras, index theory, and mathematical physics. Matilde Marcolli's article gives a survey of relevant aspects of NCG in number theory, building on an introduction to motives for beginners by Jorge Plazas and Sujatha Ramdorai. A mildly unconventional view of index theory, from the viewpoint of NCG, is described in the article by Alan Carey, John Phillips, and Adam Rennie. As developed by Alain Connes and Dirk Kreimer, NCG also provides insight into novel algebraic structures underlying many analytic aspects of quantum field theory. Dominique Manchon's article on pre-Lie algebras fits into this developing research area. This interplay of algebraic and analytic techniques also appears in the articles by Christoph Bergbauer, who introduces renormalization theory and Feynman diagram methods, and Sylvie Paycha, who focuses on relations between renormalization and zeta function techniques.
Nigel Hitchin is one of the world's foremost figures in the fields of differential and algebraic geometry and their relations with mathematical physics, and he has been Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford since 1997. Geometry and Physics: A Festschrift in honour of Nigel Hitchin contain the proceedings of the conferences held in September 2016 in Aarhus, Oxford, and Madrid to mark Nigel Hitchin's 70th birthday, and to honour his far-reaching contributions to geometry and mathematical physics. These texts contain 29 articles by contributors to the conference and other distinguished mathematicians working in related areas, including three Fields Medallists. The articles cover a broad range of topics in differential, algebraic and symplectic geometry, and also in mathematical physics. These volumes will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in geometry and mathematical physics.
This book explores the rich and deep interplay between mathematics and physics one century after David Hilbert’s works from 1891 to 1933, published by Springer in six volumes. The most prominent scientists in various domains of these disciplines contribute to this volume providing insight to their works, and analyzing the impact of the breakthrough and the perspectives of their own contributions. The result is a broad journey through the most recent developments in mathematical physics, such as string theory, quantum gravity, noncommutative geometry, twistor theory, Gauge and Quantum fields theories, just to mention a few. The reader, accompanied on this journey by some of the fathers of these theories, explores some far reaching interfaces where mathematics and theoretical physics interact profoundly and gets a broad and deep understanding of subjects which are at the core of recent developments in mathematical physics. The journey is not confined to the present state of the art, but sheds light on future developments of the field, highlighting a list of open problems. Graduate students and researchers working in physics, mathematics and mathematical physics will find this journey extremely fascinating. All those who want to benefit from a comprehensive description of all the latest advances in mathematics and mathematical physics, will find this book very useful too.
The subject of algebraic cycles has its roots in the study of divisors, extending as far back as the nineteenth century. Since then, and in particular in recent years, algebraic cycles have made a significant impact on many fields of mathematics, among them number theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics. The present volume contains articles on all of the above aspects of algebraic cycles. It also contains a mixture of both research papers and expository articles, so that it would be of interest to both experts and beginners in the field.
This book is based on the mini-workshop Renormalization, held in December 2006, and the conference Combinatorics and Physics, held in March 2007. Both meetings took place at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Mathematik in Bonn, Germany. Research papers in the volume provide an overview of applications of combinatorics to various problems, such as applications to Hopf algebras, techniques to renormalization problems in quantum field theory, as well as combinatorial problems appearing in the context of the numerical integration of dynamical systems, in noncommutative geometry and in quantum gravity. In addition, it contains several introductory notes on renormalization Hopf algebras, Wilsonian renormalization and motives.
