Twistor Theory, Self-Dual Spacetimes, and Newton-Cartan Geometry

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• James Gundry (University of Cambridge)
• Wednesday 11 March 2015, 16:15-17:15
• CMS, Potter Room (B1.19) .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Ciaran Hughes.

Twistor theory can be thought of as a framework in which spacetime is derived from supposedly more fundamental complex geometry. Remarkably, spacetimes derived in this way often come equipped with physically-relevant structures like metrics, connections, and gauge fields. I will give a minimalist introduction to this central idea of twistor theory, assuming no prior knowledge of the subject. Two examples will demonstrate how this idea works in practice: I’ll describe the twistor theory of self-dual Ricci-flat spacetimes and the nascent twistor theory of Newton-Cartan spacetimes.

This talk is part of the HEP/GR Informal Seminar Series for Graduate Students series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• CMS, Potter Room (B1.19)
• Cosmology, Astrophysics and General Relativity

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