General Covariance from the Viewpoint of Stacks
General Covariance from the Viewpoint of Stacks
Filip Dul, UMass Amherst
Date and time:
Mon, Dec 06, 2021 - 12:20pm
Location:
LGRT 1634
Category:
Joint Math/Physics Seminar
Special notes:
Postponed from November 29
Abstract:
General covariance is a crucial notion in the study of field theories on curved spacetimes. Roughly, a generally covariant field theory is one that is defined with respect to a background semi-Riemannian metric such that it is only sensitive to the diffeomorphism classes of that metric. In other words, the bundle of theories over the space of semi-Riemannian metrics is equivariant with respect to the diffeomorphism group of the underlying spacetime. In this talk, we will make the preceding ideas precise by using stacks and introducing examples.
Department of Physics