Andrew Hamilton (CU Boulder, Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences)
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Spinors -- spin 1/2 particles -- come already quantized. They come in two species, row spinors and column spinors, which already have the properties of fermion creation and annihilation operators: you can multiply a row spinor by a column spinor or vice versa, but you cannot multiply a row spinor by a row spinor or a column spinor by a column spinor. The anticommutation property of spinors can be traced to the fact that the spinor metric in 4 dimensions is antisymmetric. This seminar explores building quantum field theory on a foundation of the known properties of spinors, rather than on postulated rules. Spinors have properties beyond those invoked by qft; for example, the algebra of outer products of spinors yields (is isomorphic to) the multivector algebra of strings and branes of all dimensions. Might spinors point to a way forward for qft at unification scales?
Founding Quantum Field Theory on Spinors
Feb. 26, 2020 5pm (Math 350)
MathClub
Invited: Internal CU Math REU (Diversity Committee from CU Boulder)
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The Math Club and Diversity Committee are having an event to talk to undergraduates about math research and the various opportunities available to the undergraduate students through CU. Our goal is to widen the pool of applicants to the REU and Experimental Math Lab programs and to create an inclusive and equitable opportunity for our students.