Lorentz Professor lecture

Location: De Sitterzaal
Time: 13:45 - 15:30

abstract

Twistor Theory I: Twistor Geometry and the Wavefunctions of Massless Particles Twistor theory offers a novel picture of basic physical processes where the very arena of space-time is replaced by twistor space, non-locally related to it, where space-time points are regarded as secondary, the elements of twistor space being primary. A single twistor represents the entire history of a massless entity with intrinsic spin. Space-time points may be regarded as Riemann spheres in twistor space, the complex geometry of which directly relates both to relativity and to the foundational complex numbers of quantum theory. Wavefunctions for massless particles find a remarkable twistor description in terms of holomorphic geometry and analysis, expressing some of the curious non-local aspects of quantum physics.