Time：15:30-17:00, Oct 30th (Thursday, Beijing Time), 2025
Venue：E10-212, Yungu Campus, Westlake University
Host：Hongguang Liu, ITS
Speaker：Frank Ferrari, Professor of theoretical physics and mathematics, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
Biography：
Prof. Frank Ferrari was educated at the École Normale Supérieure of Paris. He held positions and long-term memberships in various institutions, including the École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland and CERN. He is a professor of theoretical physics and mathematics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) since 2004. He is on sabbatical in 2025/2026, spending the fall semester at the Institute for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University. His research covers several aspects of high energy theoretical physics, including quantum field theory, supersymmetric gauge theories, string theory, holography and quantum gravity. In recent years, he has focused on low dimensional quantum gravity models, in particular JT gravity, in relation with holography and SYK models, exploring the frontier with the mathematical fields of enumerative and random geometry, and probability theory.
Title：JT gravity on finite geometry: from finite cut-off holography to emerging time?
Abstract：
I will introduce a new type of boundary condition in JT gravity, that corresponds to studying the theory on finite geometries with a fluctuating boundary. This provides a completely new, microscopic, perspective on the model and opens up several avenues of research, the main points of which I will outline in my talk. In particular, I will describe a discretized formulation of the theory, corresponding to a new combinatorial problem in enumerative geometry, on which progress has been made very recently. I will also describe a purely continuum approach, making an unexpected link with Liouville theory techniques. The picture that emerges provides a novel formulation of the notion of finite cut-off in holography and suggests a model of emerging absolute boundary time.
