Over the course of three work packages, new deformations of (super) conformal field theories were constructed, the holographic duals of these deformations were identified, and the phenomenolgy of these systems was explored. One class of deformations that played an important role in this work arises when the UV theory is placed on a curved manifold known as a "spindle". A spindle is topologically a two dimensional sphere, but "pinched" at its poles. By studying this deformed theory in its holographic limit, we constructed explicitly gravitational solutions that are dual to the putative IR endpoint of the RG flow from the deformed theory. Through application of modern field theory techniques such as "c-extremization" and anomaly polynomial reduction, we demonstrated that the holographic central charge of our gravitational solutions preceisly matched the field theory prediction. Surprisingly, we found that the holographic computation of these central charges depends only on the geometric data of the spindle on which the UV theory is compactified.
We further studied a distinct family of deformations known as "monodromy defects"--like vortices in four dimensional theories. Applying our methodology to these systems allowed for the construction of holographic duals to monodromy defect theories in a collection of interesting systems in three and four dimensions. Again, we investigated these gravitational duals with the full power of holography, and succeeded in verifying and extending conjectured relationships between correlation functions in these theories and defect anomaly coefficients.
These results were disseminated through various channels, including publication in high impact journals, invited seminar talks, and international conferences and workshops. Of particular note, the results of this project were presented in an invited seminar at the 2023 Defects, Strings, and Fields workshop for experts, held on Jeju island. They were also shown in the Iberian Strings conference in both 2022 and 2023, and the 12th Regional Meeting in String Theory. Moreover, this action was instrumental in the realisation of the workshop Conformal Field Theories and Quantum Gravity, held locally at the University of Crete. This one week event brought top researchers from throughout Europe to the host institution for an intensive program focused on various aspects of theoretical physics related to the central themes of this project.
The fundamental ideas driving this project were also presented in a variety of outreach activities. Specifically, the University of Crete hosts the "Particle Physics Masterclass" for high school physics learners. In this event, students from around Crete visit the university to attend lessons on aspects of theoretical physics (including those relevant to this project), and to participate in a mock analysis activity supervised by the members of the host institution and physicists from CERN. The core ideas of this action were also presented during the University of Crete Physics open house for prospective undergraduates. This particular event is designed to encourage the best students to enroll at the University of Crete by showcasing the most noteworthy research activities in the department.
