PCTS Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory Program

The AdS/CFT correspondence is one of the most interesting developments to come out of string theory. It maps the physics of strongly interacting field theories to a dual classical gravitational description. Such a duality has led to a better understanding of both string theory and strongly coupled conformal field theories. This program aims to discuss both new, more formal, aspects of the duality involving M2 branes (the 2+1 dimensional fundamental objects of M-theory) which have been developed over the last two years, alongside various novel applications of the duality to condensed matter systems, hydrodynamics and heavy ion collisions. The former developments provide for gauge theory duals to stacks of M2-branes and hence in principle allow for a quantitative study of the still mysterious M- theory. The latter applications have been surprisingly successful in understanding features such as the low viscosity of the quark