HET Seminar | Deformations, Bions, and (De)Confinement

Speaker: Erich Poppitz (Toronto)

Recent observations, first made in string theory, led to the realization that introducing various "deformations" (finite volume, appropriate double-trace operators...) allows for an analytic study of many nonperturbative aspects of arbitrary four-dimensional gauge theories. Notably, the confinement mechanism, the generation of mass gap, and, in some cases, chiral symmetry breaking can be studied in a theoretically controlled manner. In this talk, I will review: i) the ideas and tools involved, ii) the main results obtained so far in this approach and its limitations, iii) our understanding of its relation to other approaches to (non-)supersymmetric gauge dynamics, iv) ongoing and possible future work.