Theoretical Physics Seminar: Niccolò Cribiori

Title: Open-Closed correspondence of K-theory and Cobordism

Abstract: Non-trivial K-theory groups and non-trivial cobordism groups can lead to global symmetries which are conjectured to be absent in quantum gravity. In this talk, a correspondence between the two groups is proposed. It is inspired by open-closed string duality and relies on a mathematical result known as Conner-Floyd isomorphism. As an application, it is shown how to recover known tadpole cancellation conditions of string theory from a purely bottom-up perspective. In the spirit of the swampland program, this can be used to give further support to the string lamppost principle.