Course which focuses on holography

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The discussion centers around a course on holography in theoretical physics, with participants sharing resources and recommendations for additional reading materials. Key references include foundational papers on gauge/gravity duality by J. Maldacena and introductory texts by Joseph Polchinski and others. Participants express a need for accessible yet rigorous introductory texts to understand the motivations and ideas behind holography. Suggestions include John McGreevy's work on holographic duality in many-body physics and Gary T. Horowitz's overview of gauge/gravity duality. One participant mentions the usefulness of chapter 13 from Kiritsis' "String Theory in a Nutshell" for those with a solid understanding of quantum field theory, although they note the course will focus more on general principles rather than detailed calculations.
JorisL
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Hi all,

Next period I'll be taking a course which focuses on holography this year (it's a different course every year pertaining to some (very/reasonably) active field in theoretical physics).

We have gotten some links to course materials we'll be dealing with

(1) The gauge/gravity duality, J. Maldacena, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1106.6073.pdf

(2) de Sitter musings, D. Anninos, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.3855.pdf

(3) Holographic Thermalization, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.2683.pdf

I was wondering if anybody knows of some extra resources pertaining this particular subject. So some extra references about this stuff.

In particular I would like some very basic yet rigorous introductory text going about specific motivations and ideas used in holography.

Regards,

Joris
 
Physics news on Phys.org
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9905111
Large N Field Theories, String Theory and Gravity
O. Aharony, S.S. Gubser, J. Maldacena, H. Ooguri, Y. Oz

http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.6134
Introduction to Gauge/Gravity Duality
Joseph Polchinski

But as a biologist, I confess I barely understand them. I found these much more friendly:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.0518
Holographic duality with a view toward many-body physics
John McGreevy

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0602037
Gauge/gravity duality
Gary T. Horowitz, Joseph Polchinski
 
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Great, I can certainly work with this stuff.
 
Hello JorisL! I am in a similar situation to yours, I think that if your QFT and String Theory is good (maybe I should say better than an average student) then chapter 13 of Kiritsis book "String Theory in a Nutshell" is a good place to look at. I feel OK with QFT but not with String Theory so I was not able to entirely decipher this chapter but it seems to me that it gives you a good overview of the subject. If you look at it please do let me know.

Good luck!
 
Well it turns out we won't go into too much dept regarding actual calculations and delve into a general principles.
More or less give a flavor of the theory.
Thanks for the advise though.
 
The book is fascinating. If your education includes a typical math degree curriculum, with Lebesgue integration, functional analysis, etc, it teaches QFT with only a passing acquaintance of ordinary QM you would get at HS. However, I would read Lenny Susskind's book on QM first. Purchased a copy straight away, but it will not arrive until the end of December; however, Scribd has a PDF I am now studying. The first part introduces distribution theory (and other related concepts), which...
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