Physics and Mathematics of Generalized Symmetry in QFT
from
Monday, 24 August 2026 (09:00)
to
Friday, 28 August 2026 (15:30)
Monday, 24 August 2026
09:00
Safety briefing at Kavli IPMU, Prof. Saeko Hayashi
Safety briefing at Kavli IPMU, Prof. Saeko Hayashi
09:00 - 09:10
Room: Lecture Hall
09:10
RG flow, Non-invertible symmetries and Matrix Factorization
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Yu Nakayama
RG flow, Non-invertible symmetries and Matrix Factorization
Yu Nakayama
09:10 - 10:10
Room: Lecture Hall
10:10
Tea break
Tea break
10:10 - 10:30
Room: In front of the lecture hall
10:30
Multipartite Entanglement in Fusion-Categorical Lattice Models
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Pavel Putrov
Multipartite Entanglement in Fusion-Categorical Lattice Models
Pavel Putrov
10:30 - 11:30
Room: Lecture Hall
The symmetry structure of an $(n+1)$-dimensional quantum field theory is expected to be encoded by a fusion $n$-category. The associated SymTFT, is an $(n+2)$-dimensional topological quantum field theory admitting a natural lattice realization constructed from this categorical data. In this talk, I will discuss what information about the SymTFT can be extracted from multipartite entanglement invariants of the ground state of the lattice model on Euclidean space. I will focus on several particularly tractable cases.
11:30
Group Photo
Group Photo
11:30 - 11:50
Room: Fujiwara Hall on the 3rd floor
11:50
Lunch break
Lunch break
11:50 - 14:00
14:00
Symmetry TFTs for Continuous Spacetime Symmetries
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Iñaki García-Etxebarria
Symmetry TFTs for Continuous Spacetime Symmetries
Iñaki García-Etxebarria
14:00 - 15:00
Room: Lecture Hall
I will discuss our recent proposal for the Symmetry Topological Field Theory (SymTFT) for global, continuous spacetime symmetries (https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07965). For a $d$-dimensional theory, it is given by a $(d+1)$-dimensional $BF$-theory for the spacetime symmetry group, and whenever $d$ is even, it includes also Chern-Simons couplings, that encode conformal and gravitational anomalies. This proposal is supported by the similarity to two-dimensional Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity in the $d = 1$ case and the topological limit of four-dimensional gravity in the $d = 3$ case. I will discuss how topological defects constructed from this SymTFT act by applying the associated spacetime symmetry transformation. Finally, I will discuss the relation to gravity and holography.
15:00
Tea break
Tea break
15:00 - 15:30
Room: Fujiwara Hall on the 3rd floor
15:30
QCA and K-theory lecture
-
Bowen Yang
QCA and K-theory lecture
Bowen Yang
15:30 - 17:00
Room: Lecture Hall
Tuesday, 25 August 2026
09:00
Extension of sigma models and anomalies
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Kazuya Yonekura
Extension of sigma models and anomalies
Kazuya Yonekura
09:00 - 10:00
Room: Lecture Hall
Sigma models have interesting generalization which corresponds to group extension in gauge theories. In my talk, I first explain topological structure of sigma models related to sigma model anomalies, and then discuss the extension of sigma models and anomalies when they are coupled to matter fields.
10:00
Tea break
Tea break
10:00 - 10:30
Room: In front of the lecture hall
10:30
Elliptic Coulomb branches
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Mayuko Yamashita
Elliptic Coulomb branches
Mayuko Yamashita
10:30 - 11:30
Room: Lecture Hall
I will report the ongoing work with Samuel DeHority, Wenjun Liu and Mykola Semenyakin on the construction of elliptic Coulomb branches. This is an elliptic cohomology version of the existing ordinary/K-theoretic Coulomb branches via the BFN construction. Thanks to the recent development of the theory of elliptic cohomology, we can carry out the construction in genuine equivariant elliptic cohomology (Topological Modular Forms).
11:30
Lunch break
Lunch break
11:30 - 14:00
14:00
Resurgence of the Thermal Transition between Bounce and Sphaleron
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Sungjay Lee
Resurgence of the Thermal Transition between Bounce and Sphaleron
Sungjay Lee
14:00 - 15:00
Room: Lecture Hall
We study the thermal transition between the bounce and the sphaleron in quantum mechanics with a metastable vacuum from the viewpoint of Borel resurgence. For two models representing a second-order and a first-order transition, we compute the perturbative expansion of the thermal free energy to high orders and extract the leading Borel singularity data $(A,b,S)$ as functions of temperature. The Borel singularity location $A$ reproduces the on-shell action of the dominantsaddle on both sides of the transition, joining smoothly in the second-order case and developing a kink in the first-order case. The characteristic exponent $b$ jumps between $0$ and $1/2$ across the transition, counting the zero modes of the corresponding saddle. The Stokes constant $S$ matches the one-loop determinant around the saddle. The perturbative expansion around the false vacuum thus determines the transition temperature, the order of the transition, and the decay rate including the one-loop prefactor without relying on semiclassical inputs.
15:00
Tea break
Tea break
15:00 - 15:30
Room: Fujiwara Hall on the 3rd floor
15:30
QCA and K-theory lecture
-
Bowen Yang
QCA and K-theory lecture
Bowen Yang
15:30 - 17:00
Room: Lecture Hall
Wednesday, 26 August 2026
09:00
Breaking Generalized Symmetries in Quantum Gravity
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Markus Dierigl
Breaking Generalized Symmetries in Quantum Gravity
Markus Dierigl
09:00 - 10:00
Room: Lecture Hall
In this talk I will summarize recent advances in the description of symmetry-breaking defects in quantum gravity theories. These are important to ensure that there are no global symmetries in the UV. In particular, I will analyze global symmetries that originate from topological features of the theory at low-energy and can be associated to deformation classes described by bordism groups. I will then use this approach to analyze well-known models such as maximal supergravity theories.
10:00
Tea break
Tea break
10:00 - 10:30
Room: In front of the lecture hall
10:30
Unoriented
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Ruben Minasian
Unoriented
Ruben Minasian
10:30 - 11:30
Room: Lecture Hall
M-theory partition function is well defined on unorientable manifolds. I will discuss some im/applications of this.
11:30
Lunch break
Lunch break
11:30 - 14:00
14:00
Symmetry Theories, Anomalies and η-Invariants (Geometric Engineering and Quiver Approaches)
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Mirjam Cvetič
Symmetry Theories, Anomalies and η-Invariants (Geometric Engineering and Quiver Approaches)
Mirjam Cvetič
14:00 - 15:00
Room: Lecture Hall
We present progress on calculation of anomaly coefficients for higher symmetries in quantum field theories (QFTs) both from the perspective of geometric engineering and quiver approaches. Within geometric engineering this data is governed by $\eta$-invariants extracted from the boundary geometry on non-compact Calabi-Yau space $X$. Quiver approach provides a complementary way to extract this data from the path algebra of branes probing $X$. We present explicit results for one-form anomaly coefficients in five-dimensional supersymmetric QFTs, engineered in M-theory on classes non-compact Calabi-Yau three-folds $X$. The quiver approach applies also in situations where the counterpart geometric computation is either combinatorially unwieldy or unknown, such as cones over Einstein-Sasaki spaces.
15:00
Tea break
Tea break
15:00 - 15:30
Room: Fujiwara Hall on the 3rd floor
15:30
QCA and K-theory lecture
-
Bowen Yang
QCA and K-theory lecture
Bowen Yang
15:30 - 17:00
Room: Lecture Hall
Thursday, 27 August 2026
09:00
Symmetry-intertwining Topological lines and boundaries in 1+1d fermions
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Kantaro Ohmori
Symmetry-intertwining Topological lines and boundaries in 1+1d fermions
Kantaro Ohmori
09:00 - 10:00
Room: Lecture Hall
I will talk about topological lines and boundaries in $(1+1)d$ fermions that intertwines symmetry charges. Based on a joint work with Yunqin Zheng, Masataka Watanabe, Pengcheng Wei.
10:00
Tea break
Tea break
10:00 - 10:30
Room: In front of the lecture hall
10:30
Flat-gauging lines and boundaries
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Yichul Choi
Flat-gauging lines and boundaries
Yichul Choi
10:30 - 11:30
Room: Lecture Hall
We discuss aspects of “flat-gauging” in $(1+1)d$ conformal field theories (CFTs). We show how to explicitly compute the dual global symmetries as well as various conformal boundary states of the gauged theory. As an application, we present a full classification of generalized global symmetries of a massless, non-compact free scalar field. We also classify all the conformal boundary states of the free scalar field, as well as all the symmetries and conformal boundaries of the Runkel-Watts CFT, which are closely related to those of the Liouville CFT. Our classifications reproduce all the known symmetries and boundaries of these theories, and we also discover some new ones. Based on a work in collaboration with Ho Tat Lam, Brandon C. Rayhaun.
11:30
Lunch break
Lunch break
11:30 - 14:00
14:00
Free discussion
Free discussion
14:00 - 15:00
15:00
Tea break
Tea break
15:00 - 15:30
Room: Fujiwara Hall on the 3rd floor
15:30
Free discussion
Free discussion
15:30 - 17:00
Friday, 28 August 2026
09:00
Dimensional reduction of topological operators
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Rajath Radhakrishnan
Dimensional reduction of topological operators
Rajath Radhakrishnan
09:00 - 10:00
Room: Lecture Hall
While a generic quantum field theory may admit infinitely many topological operators, their topological nature imposes strong consistency conditions on their structure. In this talk, I will introduce the notion of dimensional reduction of topological operators and discuss some constraints it imposes in various spacetime dimensions. I will explain how these constraints severely restrict the possible non-invertible symmetries of QFTs in spacetime dimensions greater than two. This talk is based on arXiv: 2603.03438.
10:00
Tea break
Tea break
10:00 - 10:30
Room: In front of the lecture hall
10:30
On the classification of 2d TQFTs with time-reversal symmetry
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Du Pei
On the classification of 2d TQFTs with time-reversal symmetry
Du Pei
10:30 - 11:30
Room: Lecture Hall
We provide a complete classification of a class of two-dimensional topological quantum field theories with time-reversal symmetry. One of the key ingredients is a generalized Frobenius-Schur indicator, which we also define for line operators in $3d$ TQFTs. We will discuss several applications of the classification to the study of topological phases.
11:30
Lunch break
Lunch break
11:30 - 14:00
14:00
Generalized Hecke Relations.
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Justin Kaidi
Generalized Hecke Relations.
Justin Kaidi
14:00 - 15:00
Room: Lecture Hall
15:00
Tea break
Tea break
15:00 - 15:30
Room: Fujiwara Hall on the 3rd floor