Notices of the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematicians

Volume 6 (2018)

Number 1

Integral Lattice Models from Gauge Theory

Pages: 35 – 45

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/ICCM.2018.v6.n1.a5

Author

Edward Witten (School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.)

Abstract

These notes provide an introduction to recent work by Kevin Costello in which integrable lattice models of classical statistical mechanics in two dimensions are understood in terms of quantum gauge theory in four dimensions. This construction will be compared to the more familiar relationship between quantum knot invariants in three dimensions and Chern-Simons gauge theory. (Based on a Whittaker Colloquium at the University of Edinburgh and a lecture at Strings 2016 in Beijing.)

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Published 14 September 2018