Seminar series
Date
Mon, 03 Jun 2013
Time
12:00 -
13:00
Location
L3
Speaker
Chris Hull
Organisation
Imperial College
One of the more dramatic effects that can arise in a theory at strong coupling is the opening up of an extra spatial dimension, as in IIA string theory or 5-dimensional maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The aim of this talk is to investigate the possibility of an extra time dimension opening up in a similar way. The main focus will be on supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in 5 Euclidean dimensions with 16 supersymmetries, which will be argued to have a strong coupling limit that is a theory in 5+1 dimensions, with a new time dimension opening up to give the (2,0) theory. This gives new insight into the elusive (2,0) theory, which also arises as the M5-brane world-volume theory. It is interesting to have a theory formulated with no time dimension but from which time emerges, and may be useful in thinking about cosmological models in which time and/or space are emergent. The discussion raises questions about the role of time in quantum theory, and about the meaning of a compact time dimension.