How does supergravity reproduce mock modularity?

by Abhiram Kidambi (Kavli IPMU)

Monday 16 May 2022, 15:00 → 16:00 Europe/Berlin

SR2

Being able to compute partition functions in quantum gravity is one of the biggest open problems in physics. Usually, it is not an easy task to derive a generating function for partitions in physics. In string theory, for certain kinds of extremal configurations (topologically protected quantum black holes in string theory), writing down their partition functions is doable. However, this is not the end of the story since the partition functions for such black holes in theories with half or quarter the maximal supersymmetry, there are non-trivial effects known as wall crossing. From the microscopic point of view, these effects can be removed and it leads us into the rather beautiful theory of mock modular forms. However, what remains an open question is to see how this mock modular "symmetry" is manifest directly in terms of the supergravity theory. This talk will focus on progress towards that problem.