String Theory seminar - Gary Shiu [NOTE UNUSUAL TIME AND DAY: TUESDAY 15:00] Seminar

Abstract: String theory seems to offer an enormous number of possibilities for low energy physics. The huge set of solutions is often known as the String Theory Landscape. In recent years, however, it has become clear that not all quantum field theories can be consistently coupled to gravity. Theories that cannot be ultraviolet completed in quantum gravity are said to be in the Swampland. In this talk, I’ll discuss these swampland criteria, focussing on one of the conjectured properties of quantum gravity known as the Weak Gravity Conjecture. I’ll present evidence for the Weak Gravity Conjecture and discuss its applications to cosmology.