Deciphering AdS/CFT

Organizers: Matthias Gaberdiel (ETH Zürich) and Rajesh Gopakumar (ICTS Bangalore)

Recently, the AdS/CFT duality for the case of AdS3/CFT2 has been understood in quite some detail. In particular, a solvable world-sheet theory has been identified that has been argued to be exactly equivalent to the dual free symmetric orbifold CFT. While some of the features of this low dimensional example may be specific to the AdS3/CFT2 setting, one may hope that a number of general lessons may be more widely applicable. In particular, the AdS3/CFT2 example shows signs of a topological string subsector, and the world-sheet correlation functions have delta-function support; both of these features had also been conjectured to arise in higher dimensions, in particular, for the case of AdS5/CFT4. The realisation of higher spin symmetries on the worldsheet in the lower dimensional example may also afford clues about the higher dimensional case. The aim of the meeting is to bring the proponents of these various ideas together to try and make progress in deciphering the AdS/CFT correspondence in the tensionless string (i.e. free Yang-Mills) limit.

Postponed from 2021.