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Well, no turning back now…

PhD Thesis Defense

Candidate:  Yonatan Zunger
Advisor:  Leonard Susskind

Tuesday, May 20, 9 AM
Varian 3rd Floor Conference Room

TITLE:
Building Branes Out of Matrices

ABSTRACT:
We examine the set of objects which can be built in type IIA string theory by
matrix methods using an infinite number of D0-branes. In addition to
stacks of ordinary Dp-branes and branes in background fields, we find
exotic states which cannot be constructed by other means. These states
exhibit strongly noncommutative geometry, (e.g., partial derivatives on them
do not commute) and some are conjectured to have Z_N–valued
charges similar to those of the type I D-instanton. Real-valued charges are
forbidden by Dirac quantization, leading to a nontrivial relationship
between noncommutative topological invariants.

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Published in: on May 14, 2003 at 14:57  Comments (12)  
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12 Comments

  1. On May 14, 2003 at 14:58 britgeekgrrl said:

    Wow, I have no idea what your thesis is about. I’m impressed!
    Good luck with the defense!

  2. On May 14, 2003 at 15:08 musae said:

    I’m sorry that I didn’t understand a darn word of that thesis, but I’m proud of you! You’ll do great.
    best of luck!

  3. On May 14, 2003 at 15:33 kaidevis said:

    I understood the first eleven words of the abstract! I think this is going to be a common reaction though.
    Break a leg!

  4. On May 14, 2003 at 15:41 woody77 said:

    For second I thought you/they had misspelled brain in the title, then I realized I have no idea what a brane is.
    Break a brane!

  5. On May 14, 2003 at 16:09 musae said:

    Okay, I was dramatic…
    I understood the first 11 words too.
    ;P

  6. On May 14, 2003 at 16:14 gaaneden said:

    Sweet! It’s finally scheduled! You know, based on the several discussions I’ve had with you about this stuff – especially in the propulation system for Regresser’s Evolution, I think I almost understand the most basic idea of what that Abstract says. Sorta. I think I would have to have you show me diagrams again. In any case, good luck and I know you’re going to do well. *hand to heart*

  7. On May 14, 2003 at 16:31 moof said:

    I don’t know what Z_N orbifolds are. Waaaaaaah!
    (I always wanted to know what the fuck the imaginary components in wave equation probabilities meant. I only ever got the answer “well, we throw those components away.”)

  8. On May 14, 2003 at 16:47 mockinggreylock said:

    Cool! Good luck 🙂
    When will you be presenting the non-physicist version? 🙂

  9. On May 14, 2003 at 17:50 zunger said:

    There’s actually a pretty simple answer to that. Ask me sometime when I’m not in a panic. 🙂

  10. On May 14, 2003 at 17:50 zunger said:

    Next time I’m drunk at a party near a chalkboard, and somebody asks? 🙂

  11. On May 14, 2003 at 23:13 jholloway said:

    Good luck, hoss.

  12. On May 19, 2003 at 10:24 grandmoffdavid said:

    Good luck, godspeed, steady hands.


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