Thermal equivariance and its applications (Tata-Infosys Lecture Series)

by Prof. Mukund Rangamani (University of California, Davis)

Thursday 7 Dec 2017, 10:00 → 11:00 Asia/Kolkata

A304

I will describe how techniques from topological field theory and equivariant cohomology find a role in physical problems. I will define the notion of thermal equivariance which will involve gauging thermal diffeomorphisms, and argue that these constructions naturally lead to entropy being interpretable as a Noether current. I will outline an application to constructing dissipative hydrodynamic effective actions, reproducing previously known facts about the admissible constitutive relations.

Poster 05-11-1017_Mukund_Rangamani.pdf