Navigating Scalar Field Space with Generalized Ricci Flow

Noviembre 28, 2024
De 12:00pm hasta 1:00pm

IFT Seminar Room/Red Room

Specialist level
Speaker: 
Thomas Raml
Institution: 
MPP Munich
Location&Place: 

IFT Seminar Room/Red Room

Abstract: 

After the paper discussion, our guest Thomas Raml from MPP Munich will give a talk titled "Navigating Scalar Field Space with Generalized Ricci Flow".

Abstract:

A notion of distance on the moduli space of low-energy effective field theories is crucial for the Swampland program, and specifically for the Distance Conjecture. 
In this talk, I will show how geometric flow equations, and in particular generalizations of the Ricci flow, offer a different and elegant viewpoint in the more general case of a scalar field  space with potential. 
After a brief introduction to Ricci flow and its generalization to backgrounds involving a NSNS two-form $B$,  I will review the known realization as a gradient flow of the string-effective action and the associated $\beta$-functions, ultimately proposing a suitable notion of distance along the flow as well as a generalized Ricci  flow Conjecture. I will discuss several examples highlighting the new and intriguing implications as well as the connection to previous work on the role of (diverging) potentials. 
This work is in collaboration with Saskia Demulder and Dieter Lüst.