Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Seminar: Andrea Dei (U.Chicago), "On the string theory of a single NS5-brane"
- Event Type
- Seminar/Symposium
- Sponsor
- Physics - The Anthony J Leggett Institute for Condensed Matter Theory
- Location
- Loomis 464
- Date
- Nov 20, 2025 1:10 - 2:00 pm
- Speaker
- Andrea Dei
- Contact
- Thierry Ramais
- ramais@illinois.edu
- Phone
- 217-300-2044
- Views
- 55
- Originating Calendar
- Physics - Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Seminar
Abstract: I will present a worldsheet formulation of string theory in the background of a single decoupled NS5-brane, which is a particularly simple example of ``little string'' holography. The worldsheet theory involves a gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten model for the group coset G/H, where G=PSU(1,1|2)×R^{5,1} and H=U(1)×U(1). A variant of the embedding of H into G describes a background that interpolates between the fivebrane throat in the UV and AdS3 in the IR, which is dual to the (single trace) TTbar-deformed symmetric product orbifold. Well-known difficulties with a worldsheet theory for n_5=1 fivebranes are bypassed by the incorporation of an extra constraint on the dynamics. Along the way, we construct a map between the supergroup formulation of the n_5=1 worldsheet theory and the more conventional RNS worldsheet formalism.