Event Details

A recurring theme in the attempts of understanding the quantum theory of gravity is the idea of “Gravity as the square of Yang-Mills”. This involves the tensoring of the multiplet content of two super-Yang-Mills theories to obtain the multiplet content of a supergravity theory. A complete understanding of this correspondence requires studying how both global and local symmetries originate from the corresponding Yang-Mills factors. In the first part of the talk, Dr. Anastasiou will show how we can construct the global (U-duality) supergravity symmetries out of the corresponding global Yang-Mills ones (R-symmetries) in all spacetime dimensions between 3 and 10. In the second part, he will demonstrate how the local symmetries of the gravity theory (in linearised approximation) can also be derived from local gauge invariance of the Yang-Mills factors. This will be done through a specific example in 4 spacetime dimensions.