Seminar of Department of Theoretical Physics - Eugenia Boffo (10.6.2025)
Tuesday 29.4.2025 at 15:30, Lecture room F2/125
Eugenia Boffo (Charles University in Prague):
On Kodaira-Spencer theory
Abstract:
Topological strings have moduli that are either Kähler h1,1 or complex structure h2,1. The deformation problem of complex structures, as customary for deformation problems, consists of a Maurer-Cartan equation, in this case involving the Dolbeault differential and the Schouten bracket. Unfortunately, various issues (lack of a suitable bilinear symmetric 2-form, or use of a divergence operator in the working expression for the Schouten bracket) concur to prevent an action functional in MC form (i.e. whose field equations are the MC equations). Therefore the original proposals of an action in the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism, known as Kodaira-Spencer theory of gravity or BCOV theory, involve either a non-local kinetic term [Bershadsky-Cecotti-Ooguri-Vafa ’93] or a constrained variation [Barannikov-Kontsevich ’97]. We propose a fix to this, borrowing structures from superstring field theory. Based on a work with Hulík and Sachs to appear soon.