What is...?

Idea

The Notices of the AMS contain a regular column ``What is ...?'' which gives a brief explanation of a mathematical notion, including its motivation and its interest for various fields of mathematics. Each contribution is limited to 2 pages. Here a list of more than 110 such contributions can be found. In the context of the ZMP seminar, we want to use a format of short contributions of 15 minutes to explain notions from mathematics, mathematical physics and physics.

Upcoming what is ...?

... Hawking radiation. 5.4.2018, Arpan Saha
... Drinfeld associator. 19.4.2018, Adrien Brochier
... screening charge. 3.5.2018, Simon Lentner.

Past what is ...?

... a brane. 23.10.2014, Christoph Schweigert. Slides and notes.
... Teichmüller space. 6.11.2014, Jörg Tescher.
... T-duality. 4.12.2014, Jan Louis.
... a conformal field theory. 18.12.2014, Volker Schomerus.
... a classifying space. 15.1.2015, Christoph Wockel. Slides.
... an anomaly polynomial. 5.11.2015, Jan Louis.
... a BPS state. 19.11.2015, Jörg Teschner.
... Wall crossing, mathematics perspective. 3.12.2015 Pavel Sosna.
... Wall crossing, physics perspective. 17.12.2015, Jörg Teschner.
... Gromov-Witten invariants. 14.01.2016, Bernd Siebert.
... HOMFLY polynomial. 7.04.2016, Birgit Richter.
... conformal field theory. 21.4.2016, Ingo Runkel. Slides.
...quiver gauge theory. 12.05.2016, Aswin Balasubramanian.
... Surgery. 16.06.2015, Louis-Hadrien Robert.
... Landau-Ginzburg model. 17.11.2016, Gleb Arutyunov.
... a matrix factorization. 1.12.2016, Ingo Runkel. Slides.
... Kontsevich integral. 15.12.2016, Adrien Brochier. Slides.
.. (Geometric) Langlands duality. 12.01.2017, Jörg Teschner.
.. topological matter. 26.01.2017, Thore Posske. Slides.
... Khovanov homology. 1.6.2017, Louis-Hadrien Robert.
... the Kontsevich-Soibelman Wall-Crossing. 22.6.2017, Murad Alim.
... the holographic principle. 2.11.2017, Gleb Arutyunov
... BRST and BV. 16.11.2017, Urs Schreiber
... higher Algebra. 30.11.2017, Adrien Brochier. Slides.
... localization in quantum field theory. 14.12.2017, Jörg Teschner
... the twisted space of a manifold. 11.1.2018, Arpan Saha
... the Gross-Siebert program. 25.1.2018, Michel van Garrel

Wish list and offers

If you want to suggest a certain topic, please send an e-mail to Christoph Schweigert. If you are volunteering to give a ``What is...ДД talk, whether it is on the wish list or not, please send an e-mail to Christoph Schweigert as well.

Current offers: what is ...

Hubbard Stratanovich transformation. Offer by Gleb Arutyunov.
localization in quantum field theory. Offer by Jörg Teschner.
logarithmic conformal field theory. Offer by Simon Lentner.
quantum group. Offer by Simon Lentner.

Current wish list: what is ...

2-adjoint.
Chern-Simons theory.
a cluster algebra.
a derived category.
Donaldson-Thomas invariants.
Feynman diagrammatics.
a ghost.
Gopakumar-Vafa invariants.
Gromov-Witten invariants.
the Green-Schwarz mechanism.
Hawking radiation.
quiver gauge theory.
toric degeneration.