We use the Swampland Cobordism Conjecture recently proposed by McNamara and Vafa to study the spectrum of objects in type IIB string theory. A famous feature of type IIB string theory (as well as several other quantum systems) is that it enjoys a non-abelian duality group. By computing the relevant cobordism groups, we show that the cobordism conjecture successfully reconstructs many known supersymmetric objects, and also predicts the existence of a new non-supersymmetric “reflection 7-brane,” the properties of which we describe. Time permitting, we also discuss how such 7-branes implement generalized symmetry operators in various quantum field theories engineered from string theory. Based on joint work with Debray, Dierigl, Montero and Torres.
Self-Intro: Jonathan J. Heckman is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been since 2017. Prior to this he was a professor at UNC Chapel Hill and had postdoc appointments at Harvard University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Prof. Heckman received his Ph.D. from Harvard and his A.B. from Princeton University. Prof. Heckman works on a number of topics within string theory, quantum field theory, and its applications to questions in particle physics, cosmology, pure mathematics, and information theory.
Prof. Yinan Wang