Skip to main content
Search type Search syntax
Tags [tag]
Exact "words here"
Author user:1234
user:me (yours)
Score score:3 (3+)
score:0 (none)
Answers answers:3 (3+)
answers:0 (none)
isaccepted:yes
hasaccepted:no
inquestion:1234
Views views:250
Code code:"if (foo != bar)"
Sections title:apples
body:"apples oranges"
URL url:"*.example.com"
Saves in:saves
Status closed:yes
duplicate:no
migrated:no
wiki:no
Types is:question
is:answer
Exclude -[tag]
-apples
For more details on advanced search visit our help page
Results tagged with
Search options answers only not deleted user 947

Mathematical methods in classical mechanics, classical and quantum field theory, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, condensed matter, nuclear and atomic physics.

3 votes

Proving non-existence of non-frictional CVTs?

I believe an epicyclic or planetary cvt is a counterexample. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOiAfOH-fU8
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
4 votes

Renormalization in physics vs. dynamical systems

There’s a bit of a terminological collision going on here. Physicists often use the term “renormalization” to refer the process of removing infinities from QFT calculations and to renormalization or “ …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
5 votes

What is the relationship between spinors and supermanifolds and fermions?

This is a bit of a repackaging of the same info in the other answer, but maybe it will be more clear. The short answer is (almost) both: A fermion is a section of the parity shifted spinor bundle on a …
LSpice's user avatar
  • 12.9k
4 votes
Accepted

References for quivers and derived categories of coherent sheaves for a string theory student

First, that review is somewhat depressing in that it's been over ten years since people figured out how to write down explicit boundary conditions in the B-model for objects in the derived category, b …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
4 votes

Less fundamental applications of Zeta regularization:

Zeta function regularization computes the asymptotics of smoothed sums. https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-euler-maclaurin-formula-bernoulli-numbers-the-zeta-function-and-real-variable-an …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
11 votes
Accepted

What are some mathematical consequences of the study of 6D $\mathcal N = (2,0)$ SCFT?

If you take the (2,0) theory and put it on a manifold which is $T^2 \times M_4$, it is known to reduce to $\mathcal{N} = 4$ super-Yang Mills theory on $M_4$. That theory exhibits S-duality, which has …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
33 votes

Why is Quantum Field Theory so topological?

As Robert Israel indicates, if you really wanted to define a QFT, it would certainly be very analytic, say, to define the path integral. So analytic, in fact, that no one can do it for even semicompli …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
6 votes

$\zeta$-function regularized determinants

Another chance to link to my favorite math blog post on the internet. The answer is that zeta-function regularization is determining the constant part in a divergent series when you add in a smooth c …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
24 votes
Accepted

What does Yang-Mills and mass gap problem has to do with mathematics?

There is a long, long list of mathematical subjects that were either pioneered or significantly inspired by results in quantum field theory. However, while physicists may trust the manipulations they …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
8 votes

Why are operads so closely connected to mathematical physics?

It's not really possible to give a precise answer to this question, so I apologize for being vague here. One answer is because a lot of multiplications in physics are associated with moving two things …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
4 votes

topological actions

They are trying to define the Chern-Simons action over a manifold $M$ by writing it as the integral of $\int F \wedge F$ over a bounding manifold $B$. When the bundle is nontrivial, they consider a mo …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
25 votes

(How) is category theory actually useful in actual physics?

Categories (and higher categories) seem to be a good way of expressing the locality of the path integral in physics. In particular, it is the idea of gluing of local structures that is important. This …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar
10 votes

How should I think about B-fields?

We like to do more than that, actually. The B-field is an element in the differential cohomology class $\check{H}^3(M)$, or, more geometrically, a connection on an abelian gerbe. Thus, there is a clas …
Charles Siegel's user avatar
16 votes

What is Quantization ?

Just to restate some facts already stated in other answers, quantization can mean a few different things. In deformation quantization, we start with a classical theory given by a Poisson manifold. The …
Aaron Bergman's user avatar