Joint HEP/CPM Seminar

Quantum Gravity and the Ising Model

Alex Maloney

Department of Physics
McGill University

The holographic (AdS/CFT) correspondence postulates a duality between quantum gravity and strongly coupled quantum field theories. This may provide a new window onto quantum field theories of relevance for important condensed matter systems. In this talk I will describe this general structure, and focus on simplest possible version of this correspondence: the duality between the critical Ising model and general relativity in a universe with two spatial dimensions.

This talk is intended for non-specialists, and will (hopefully) be comprehensible to condensed matter and particle physicists.