2022 Simons Summer Workshop: July 25 – August 12, 2022

Participant ListPublicationsView Videos

Scientific Organizer: Cumrun Vafa (Harvard),

Local Organizer: Martin Rocek (CN Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics)

This Workshop is the fourteenth conducted by the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook and the nineteenth in the series Simons Summer Workshops. This year’s summer workshop will focus on Diverse Facets of String Theory. String theory has developed in many directions, giving rise to a rich spectrum of subspecialties. In this year’s summer workshop, we hope to help researchers reconnect and cross-fertilize by inviting specialists in different areas to present the underlying stringy basis of their work, and describe the state of the art in the newest developments. Topics will include the AdS/CFT correspondence and operator algebras, SCFTs and topological modular forms, the bootstrap, higher form and non-invertible symmetries and category theory, the Swampland, new developments in stringy phenomenology, etc.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays

All talks will be held in the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics Lecture Hall (Room 103).
Breakfast will be served daily from 9:00 am-10:00 am in the Simons Center Cafe, 2nd floor.
Lunch will be served from 12:00 pm-2:00 pm in the Simons Center Cafe, 2nd floor
Tea time will be outside the Simons Center (weather permitting) at 3:30 pm.

Wednesdays
The talk will be at Smith Point Beach (please see transportation website). Lunch will be served at Smith Point Beach around 12:30 pm pick up from the beach will be around 3:00 pm.

*Speakers and titles will be added to the schedule throughout the workshop.

Week 1Week 2Week 3

Simons Summer Talk and Events Workshop Schedule


Time Title Speaker Location
Monday July 25
10:00am Counting of States Hirosi Ooguri SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Counting of States Hirosi Ooguri
SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Tuesday July 26
10:00am Machine Learning and Hard Problems in Topology Sergei Gukov SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Machine Learning and Hard Problems in Topology Sergei Gukov SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Wednesday July 27
11:00am Non-invertible Symmetries in Nature Shu-heng Shao Smith’s Point Beach
Thursday July 28
10:00am Giant gravitons, Coherent States and Localization David Berenstein SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Giant gravitons, Coherent States and Localization David Berenstein
SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Friday July 29
10:00am Holomorphic CS, Open/Closed Topological Strings, WZW_4 and Anomalies Samson Shatashvili SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Holomorphic CS, Open/Closed Topological Strings, WZW_4 and Anomalies Samson Shatashvili SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe


Time Title Speaker Location
Monday August 1
10:00am Contrasting the Fuzzball and Wormhole paradigms for black holes Samir Mathur SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Contrasting the Fuzzball and Wormhole paradigms for black holes Samir Mathur SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Tuesday August 2
10:00am Swampland, black holes, and finiteness Irene Valenzuela SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Swampland, black holes, and finiteness Irene Valenzuela SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Wednesday August 3
11:00am Higgs Branch RG flows in 4 and 6 dimensions Jacques Distler Smith’s Point Beach
Thursday August 4
10:00am Carving out the space of large N confining gauge theories Leonardo Rastelli SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Carving out the space of large N confining gauge theories Leonardo Rastelli SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Friday August 5
10:00am Decomposition and condensation defects Daniel Robbins SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Decomposition and condensation defects Daniel Robbins SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe

Time Title Speaker Location
Monday August 8
10:00am The Swampland in High Dimensions and a New String Theory Miguel Montero SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am The Swampland in High Dimensions and a New String Theory Miguel Montero SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Tuesday August 9
10:00am Quantum Field Theory and Topological Modular Forms Du Pei SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Quantum Field Theory and Topological Modular Forms Du Pei SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
Wednesday August 10
11:00am Scale Separation and the Dark Dimension Cumrun Vafa Smith’s Point Beach
Thursday August 11
10:00am AdS/CFT from the worldsheet Matthias Gaberdiel SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am AdS/CFT from the worldsheet Matthias Gaberdiel SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:00pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm von Neumann algebras and holography Monica Kang SCGP 103
6:00pm Martin ROcek Banquet N/A Simons Center Cafe
Friday August 12
10:00am Replicas, Regge and Reality: towards minimal M theory Nikita Nekrasov SCGP 103
11:00am Coffee Break N/A SCGP Cafe
11:30am Replicas, Regge and Reality: towards minimal M theory Nikita Nekrasov SCGP 103
12:00pm Lunch N/A SCGP Cafe
3:30pm Tea Time N/A SCGP Cafe