(HoRSe seminar at Imperial College) Moduli of Calabi-Yau 3-folds and instantons on $G_2$ manifolds

This talk will be largely speculative. First we consider the formal properties that could be expected of a "topological field theory" in 6+1 dimensions defined by $G_2$ instantons. We explain that this could lead to holomorphic bundles over moduli spaces of Calabi-Yau 3-folds whose ranks are the DT-invariants. We also discuss in more detail the compactness problem for $G_2$ instantons and associative submanifolds.

The talk will be held in Room 408, Imperial College Maths Department, Huxley Building, 180 Queen’s Gate, London.