Speaker
Xinan Zhou
Description
In this talk, I will explain why correlation functions involving giant gravitons are naturally viewed as correlators of local operators in the presence of zero-dimensional defects. I will present strong-coupling results obtained by combining this defect perspective with analytic bootstrap techniques. I will also show that the defect formulation reveals hidden higher-dimensional structures, which are present at both strong and weak coupling. Finally, I will argue that zero-dimensional defects provide a natural framework for general light-light-heavy-heavy correlators beyond supersymmetric settings, and I will comment on a possible extension of the analytic conformal bootstrap related to analytic functionals.