Talk:Topological quantum field theory

Removed most of a paragraph

"Physically speaking, topological field theories are not especially interesting. They are toy models, far simpler in structure than the quantum field theories which describe real-world physics. They can be thought of as warm-up exercises for the much harder task of quantizing gravity. Quantum gravity is believed to be background-independent (in some suitable sense), and TQFTs provide examples of background independent quantum field theories. Unfortunately, they are only background independent in a fairly trivial sense: they are independent of the spacetime metric (thought of as a background gravitational field), but they do not admit any local degrees of freedom. There is no radiation in a TQFT: no propagating waves, no gluons, no gravitons."

Implying that TQFTs don't "describe real-world physics" is inconsistent with the preceding paragraph.
"There is no radiation in a TQFT: no propagating waves, no gluons, no gravitons" conflicts with what I've seen elsewhere.

I'm assuming that there's a confusion here, and editing accordingly. 75.62.3.41 08:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

referable literature required

Quite impressing introduction. Even though I think the emphasize on a metric background is a bit strong (p.ex. metric independent, many TQFTs don't need a metric at all).

Can you give references of good introductions/ overviews. A review article would be nice. [melli]146.186.134.176 (talk) 00:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

strange classification

Even though I have already seen this classification in physics, I don't understand where typical topological sigma-models fit into it, p.ex. Poisson sigma model ([hep-th/9405110]), Courant sigma model ([hep-th/0608150]) or Dirac sigma model ([hep-th/0411112]).

[melli]146.186.134.176 (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

references for fixed spacetime

I am curious for some references on this section on fixed spacetime, i just saw a fantastic talk on the topic and am interested in reading more, i am interested in where this info is from, also in general having more references would be greatm perhaps a recommended reading? Sean, a student 21:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

describe the Atiyah's original axioms

I'm going to describe the Atiyah's original axioms from his papers in 1980's. I will write the original axioms, relations to physics and some examples and add some reference of them. Enyokoyama (talk) 15:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks someone for your correction of my spell miss. --Enyokoyama (talk) 12:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to papers of Sir Atiyah, I have summarized the outline of the quantum field theory, in particular of the initial phase.--Enyokoyama (talk) 06:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear someone who described firstly the part of the article about relations between TQFT and (co)bordism; Would you mind completing the article where has expressed as "[ed. unfinished]" or introducing me some references. --Enyokoyama (talk) 03:34, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I add a little bit explanation.--Enyokoyama (talk) 13:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I improve some sentences in "Witten-Type TQFT" and change some links. --Enyokoyama (talk) 11:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear John Baez: Thanks for your deleting the irrelevant reference. I did not translate it into Japanese by the same reason last year.--Enyokoyama (talk) 11:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

disambiguation needed about partition function

Dear PKT. Thanks for your pointing out this point! I intend to refer partition function in quantum field theory. But there are several partition functions, which essentially should be as same as each other, I think. I will fixed it according to your advice. I wonder which partition function is relevant. It might be difficult problem.--Enyokoyama (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed the kind of correlation functions and partition functions to "correlation function (quantum field theory)" and "partition function (quantum field theory)" but I am more interesting in the article of them (statistical mechanics) or (mathematics) than the ones (quantum field theory).--Enyokoyama (talk) 13:06, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Remove "Linker" reference

I think the "Topological Dipole Theory" reference is completely random and needs to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.110.91.126 (talk) 16:18, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism?

Large parts of this article are taken verbatim from Atiyah's article. (Sometimes, a few sentences are left out so that it becomes non-sensical.) --345Kai (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reference missing the "Witten-type TQFTs and dynamical systems" section

There are no reference to any of the claims in that section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.23.219.173 (talk) 17:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is promoting Ovchinnikov's work, which can be found on arxiv if references are needed, but the idea presented in the article, that casting everything as a TQFT is either possible or productive has not caught on. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 18:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]