Speaker
Description
Boundary conditions and extended operators or defects are fundamental aspects of quantum field theory (QFT). Yet, they are generally poorly understood in higher-dimensional interacting QFTs because explicit computations are often intractable. Progress can be made by imposing highly restrictive symmetries. A particularly prominent example in 4d is the maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory. In this talk I will discuss an interface between two copies of N=4 SYM theory whose unitary gauge groups on either side have different rank. Owing to its holographic dual, this system is often called the D3-D5 defect conformal field theory (DCFT) with flux. It preserves some supersymmetry and conformal symmetry, which make it amenable to study using a variety of techniques. In particular, I will describe how perturbation theory and the superconformal bootstrap can be used to obtain new results about the two-point function of protected bulk operators and to constrain the DCFT data. This talk is based on work in progress with Jonah Baerman and Charlotte Kristjansen.
