Ravi Vakil

Bio: Ravi Vakil is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Gauge symmetry & SYZ conjecture. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 1429 citations.

Mirror Symmetry

Abstract: We prove mirror symmetry for supersymmetric sigma models on Kahler manifolds in 1+1 dimensions The proof involves establishing the equivalence of the gauged linear sigma model, embedded in a theory with an enlarged gauge symmetry, with a Landau-Ginzburg theory of Toda type Standard R -> 1/R duality and dynamical generation of superpotential by vortices are crucial in the derivation This provides not only a proof of mirror symmetry in the case of (local and global) Calabi-Yau manifolds, but also for sigma models on manifolds with positive first Chern class, including deformations of the action by holomorphic isometries

Perturbative Gauge Theory as a String Theory in Twistor Space

Abstract: Perturbative scattering amplitudes in Yang-Mills theory have many unexpected properties, such as holomorphy of the maximally helicity violating amplitudes. To interpret these results, we Fourier transform the scattering amplitudes from momentum space to twistor space, and argue that the transformed amplitudes are supported on certain holomorphic curves. This in turn is apparently a consequence of an equivalence between the perturbative expansion of = 4 super Yang-Mills theory and the D-instanton expansion of a certain string theory, namely the topological B model whose target space is the Calabi-Yau supermanifold

The Topological Vertex

Abstract: We construct a cubic field theory which provides all genus amplitudes of the topological A-model for all non-compact toric Calabi-Yau threefolds. The topology of a given Feynman diagram encodes the topology of a fixed Calabi-Yau, with Schwinger parameters playing the role of Kahler classes of the threefold. We interpret this result as an operatorial computation of the amplitudes in the B-model mirror which is the quantum Kodaira-Spencer theory. The only degree of freedom of this theory is an unconventional chiral scalar on a Riemann surface. In this setup we identify the B-branes on the mirror Riemann surface as fermions related to the chiral boson by bosonization.

Lectures on Electric-Magnetic Duality and the Geometric Langlands Program

Abstract: These lecture notes are based on the master class given at the Center for the Topology and Quantization of Moduli Spaces, University of Aarhus, August 2007. I provide an introduction to the recent work on the Montonen-Olive duality of N = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory and the Geometric Langlands Program.

Superstrings and topological strings at large N

Abstract: We embed the large N Chern–Simons/topological string duality in ordinary superstrings. This corresponds to a large N duality between generalized gauge systems with N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions and superstrings propagating on noncompact Calabi–Yau manifolds with certain fluxes turned on. We also show that in a particular limit of the N=1 gauge theory system, certain superpotential terms in the N=1 system (including deformations if spacetime is noncommutative) are captured to all orders in 1/N by the amplitudes of noncritical bosonic strings propagating on a circle with self-dual radius. We also consider D-brane/anti-D-brane system wrapped over vanishing cycles of compact Calabi–Yau manifolds and argue that at large N they induce a shift in the background to a topologically distinct Calabi–Yau, which we identify as the ground state system of the brane/anti-brane system.