Richard Szabo (Herriot-Watt University)
http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/maths/People/Frontpages/richard.html
richard@ma.hw.ac.uk A pedagogical overview of topological string theory and its relation to the Gromov-Witten theory of local Calabi-Yau threefolds will be given, highlighting a new proposal to compute Gromov-Witten invariants using a two-dimensional gauge theory. This talk will assume no prior knowledge of string theory or of Gromov-Witten theory and will attempt to explain both topics, and their connections, at an introductory level.