Christian Ferko, Duality-Invariant Non-linear Electrodynamics and Stress Tensor Flows 

ITMP seminar, Dec 6, 2023
Speaker: Dr. Christian Ferko, University of California, Davis
Title: Duality-Invariant Non-linear Electrodynamics and Stress Tensor Flows
Abstract: I will discuss recent work on the connection between duality-invariant theories of electrodynamics in four spacetime dimensions and deformations of the Lagrangian by functions of the energy-momentum tensor. Such deformations, which we refer to as "stress tensor flows", are inspired by Zamolodchikov's T \bar{T} deformation of two-dimensional quantum field theories. We find a surprising one-to-one correspondence between these ideas: every family of self-dual theories of electrodynamics (such as the Born-Infeld and Modified Maxwell theories) obeys a flow equation built from the energy-momentum tensor, and every stress tensor deformation gives rise to families of duality-invariant theories.