Solitons, Instantons and Twistors

Schedule:

19/01 Imran Patel: Inverse Scattering and the Backlund Transform.

26/01 Ilias Papadimitriou: Classical field theory, kinks and sigma model lumps.

02/02 Ilias Papadimitriou: Gauge theory, monopoles and instantons. 

09/02 Arianna Viganò: Integrability of (A)SDYM and twistors.

16/02 Arianna Viganò: Integrability of (A)SDYM and twistors continued.

23/02 Imran Patel: Abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs Vortices

02/03 Alfie Jones: Gravitational instantons. 

09/03 Ema Mlinar: Frobenius’ integrability theorem.

 

Many interesting classical field configurations such as monopoles, vortices and instantons arise as self-reinforcing stable finite energy solutions which are extremisers of some naturally associated functional. Constructing these solutions often involves solving highly nonlinear PDE’s such as the (Anti) Self-Dual Yang-Mills equations which calls upon techniques from various areas such as twistor theory, integrability and gauge theory.
 
This reading group will be based on the book “Solitons, Instantons and Twistors” with the primary aims of developing an understanding of classical integrability, twistor methods and gauge theoretic solitons/instantons.
 
The reading group is held weekly on Monday’s between 5pm and 7pm in Bayes 1.36.
Organizer: Imran Patel

Schedule: 

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