Holographic renormalization provides a framework that makes the AdS/CFT correspondence computationally precise. It systematically resolves the divergences and ambiguities that arise when relating bulk gravitational actions to boundary correlation functions. In this seminar, I will review how correlation functions of a conformal field theory can be extracted from gravitational dynamics in asymptotically AdS spacetimes using this method. I will explain how divergences of the on-shell bulk action near the AdS boundary reflect ultraviolet divergences in the dual field theory, and how these are removed by introducing covariant boundary counterterms. The resulting renormalized action generates well-defined one- and two-point functions, while bulk interactions are encoded in Witten diagrams that compute higher-point correlators.

Gukov and Vafa have proposed that a conformal field theory describing a string compactification on a manifold is rational (an RCFT) if and only if the manifold admits complex multiplication (CM). We investigate and extend the Gukov-Vafa proposal by constructing Hodge structures of CM type using only RCFT data, without reference to a geometric interpretation. 

We use the chiral and boundary states of the RCFT to construct the complex and rational vector spaces underlying the Hodge structure. Using the known notion of Galois symmetry of RCFTs and some elementary Galois theory, we are able to show that these Hodge structures are of CM-type, subject to some technical assumptions that can be verified explicitly for large classes of theories, including those without known geometric interpretation. We also discuss briefly the relation of complex multiplication to arithmetic geometry.

This talk is based on arXiv:2510.25708 with H. Jockers and M. Sarve.