The n-Category Café

Summer School on Mathematical String Theory

Posted by Urs Schreiber

These days extended topological quantum field theory in the form of FQFT and AQFT and its variants is studied a lot by pure mathematicians, who tend to embrace the higher category theory origin of these notions. Slowly but surely one expects that $(\infty,n)$-category theory finds its way into mathematical string theory this way, where it is of utmost importance.

Eric Sharpe kindly points out the

• Summer School on Mathematical String Theory 2010
  June 21 - July 2, 2010 at Virginia Tech

Among the speakers there is John Francis, who $n$-Café regulars will know from our discussion of geometric ∞-function theory and his work on Ek-Algebra. He will lecture the $\infty$-categorical refinement of AQFT provided by topological chiral homology (factorization algebras ).

The full list of speakers so far is

• Dima Arinkin (UNC-CH) (homological algebra)
• Arend Bayer (Connecticut) (derived categories, $\pi$-stability)
• John Francis (Northwestern) ($E_n$ algebras, topological chiral homology, topological field theories)
• Josh Guffin (U-Penn) (heterotic string compactifications, (0,2) mirrors)
• Simeon Hellerman (IPMU, Japan) (modular averages, D-instantons)
• Ilarion Melnikov (Max-Planck, Potsdam) (gauged linear sigma models)
• Peter Zograf (Steklov, St. Petersburg) (moduli spaces of curves)

See the school’s website for more details.