String Theory and Holographic Duality
This MIT OpenCourseWare graduate physics course centers on holographic duality, also called gauge/gravity duality or AdS/CFT, as a single framework linking quantum gravity and black holes, QCD under extreme conditions, exotic condensed matter systems, and quantum information. The materials cover how a gravitational theory in a higher-dimensional anti-de Sitter space can be equivalent to a quantum field theory living on its boundary, and how that equivalence lets physicists translate hard problems in one field into tractable ones in another. Lecture notes and problem sets work through the technical machinery behind the duality and its applications across these diverse physical systems. The course assumes prior graduate-level exposure to string theory and quantum field theory. As with other MIT OpenCourseWare offerings, the materials are free to access under a Creative Commons license, with no certificate offered.