High Energy Theory Seminar

Limited capacity in 469 Lauritsen

Higher gauge theories are models based on generalizations of the concept of parallel transport along paths to higher dimensional manifolds. A classic argument suggests that such higher dimensional transports have to be valued in an abelian group. However, it is known for some time now that there exist more general possibilities, based on higher categorical algebra. In the case of surface transports all this is conveniently expressed using crossed modules of groups. This talk is about lattice gauge theories based of crossed modules of finite groups. I will review the underlying algebra and discuss the corresponding topological as well as fully dynamical models. As far as correlation functions of local observables are concerned, the dynamics is as for an ordinary gauge field and a decoupled abelian higher gauge field. No such statement is true for the global structure. This will be illustrated by results of Monte Carlo simulations for a particular crossed module.

For Zoom information, please email [email protected]