Dr. Stijn van Tongeren (Uniwersytet Humboldta, Berlin)

Kappa-Poincare symmetry in string theory and AdS/CFT

The kappa-Poincare algebra is a deformation of the Poincare algebra that has been intensively studied over the last decades as a possible structure arising out of quantum gravitational effects. I will discuss how this type of symmetry algebra appears in a different context, namely string theory and the AdS/CFT correspondence. Here kappa-Poincare type algebras turn out to describe the symmetries of strings that are related to strings moving in anti-de Sitter backgrounds by a double Wick rotation. These strings play an important role in advanced tests of the AdS/CFT correspondence. My talk will consist of two parts. I will begin my talk with an introduction to the AdS/CFT correspondence and strings in anti-de Sitter backgrounds. The strings we will consider turn out to be integrable, a feature which allows us to compute their exact spectra. This requires us to consider their double Wick rotated versions, however, which turn out to be strings in different backgrounds. Having established these models, I will discuss how to deform them to realize quantum algebra type symmetries. In a special limit these quantum algebras become kappa-Poincare type algebras, while the models themselves become the models describing our double Wick rotated strings.