SP Seminar @SISSA Via Bonomea 265 room 004 Tues. 16 October at 11am B. ZAN (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland)

[CM Section]

Joint ICTP/SISSA Statistical Physics Seminar

Tuesday 16 October 11:00 a.m.
SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, Room 004

B. ZAN (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland)

Title: Walking, Weakly First Order Phase Transitions and
Complex CFTs

Abstract:
I will discuss walking behavior in gauge theories and weakly first
order phase transition in statistical models. Despite being phenomena
appearing in very different physical systems, they both show a region
of approximate scale invariance. They can be understood as a theory
passing between two fixed points living at complex couplings, which we
call complex CFTs. By using conformal perturbation theory, knowing the
conformal data of the complex CFTs allows us to make predictions on the
observables of the walking theory. As an example, I will discuss the two
dimensional Q-state Potts model with Q>4.