[NT/RBRC seminar] Line Defects in CFTs: from Magnets and Impurities to Wilson Lines

by Dr Avia Raviv-Moshe (Stony Brook University)

Friday 5 Apr 2024, 11:00 → 13:00 US/Eastern

Large seminar room (https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1614715193?pwd=WkwxODVWdzZzb29zQnZRVGp3VTBDQT09 )

Line defects (one-dimensional defects) in CFTs provide a framework that is of relevance to describe various physical systems, with applications ranging from condensed matter physics to conformal gauge theories. I will review some general properties of line defects in CFTs, especially emphasizing the subject of RG flows on line defects, where recent progress has been achieved. Then, we will focus on three types of applications: external field defects, models of spin impurities, and Wilson lines in conformal gauge theories. In the context of Wilson lines, we will discuss a universal phenomenon in which Wilson lines in large enough representations are screened by charged matter fields. The onset of the screening instability will be related to a fixed-point merger.