Date Oct 9, 2018, 3:00 pm – 3:00 pm Location PCTS Seminar Room Share on X Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Speaker Miroslav Rapcak Affiliation Perimeter Institute Presentation "The Vertex Operator Algebra Vertex" Details Event Description Over the past two decades, Vertex Operator Algebras (VOA) have appeared in various contexts in gauge theory. I will discuss a class of VOAs arising as algebras of local operators at junctions of interfaces in four-dimensional N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. The simplest trivalent junction leads to a three-parameter family of algebras $Y_{L,M,N}$ generalizing famous $W_N$ algebras playing an important role in the AGT correspondence. Gluing trivalent junctions into a more complicated webs of interfaces can be lifted to gluing VOAs establishing a pictorial way to construct and study VOAs. At the level of characters, the gluing construction agrees with the topological-vertex-like counting of D4-D2-D0 branes in toric Calabi-Yau three-folds. A dual perspective in terms of M5-branes mutually intersecting in toric Calabi-Yau three-folds suggests a generalization of the AGT correspondence for such "spiked instanton" configurations.