John Huerta

Mathematical Physicist

University of Lisbon

john.huerta@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

Office: 2.08A, Pavilhão Matemática.

Department of Mathematics
Instituto Superior Técnico
Avenida Rovisco Pais 1
1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal

ON THE JOB MARKET! Here is my CV.

I am currently a research scientist at CAMGSD at Instituto Superior Técnico, a part of the University of Lisbon.

Research interests

My research concerns mathematical physics via differential geometry and higher structures. Current interests include:

Supergeometry, especially of Lie supergroups.
Super-WZW models and their branes.
Branes in twisted supergravity theories.
Loop groups in supergeometry.
The Cartan geometry of 5-manifolds equipped with "(2,3,5) distributions", the most famous of which is the rolling ball.

Education

PhD in Mathematics, University of California, Riverside, June 2011. Advisor: John Carlos Baez.

Papers

Bundle gerbes on supermanifolds.
How space-times emerge from the superpoint, which appeared in Fortschritte der Physik.
Real ADE-equivariant (co)homotopy and Super M-branes (with Hisham Sati and Urs Schreiber), which appeared in Communications in Mathematical Physics.
M-theory from the superpoint (with Urs Schreiber), which appeared in Letters in Mathematical Physics.
Division algebras and supersymmetry IV, which appeared in Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics.
The magic square of Lie groups: the 2x2 case (with Tevian Dray and Josh Kincaid), which appeared in Letters in Mathematical Physics.
G2 and the rolling ball (with John Baez), which appeared in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.
Division algebras and supersymmetry III, which appeared in Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics.
Division Algebras, Supersymmetry and Higher Gauge Theory, PhD thesis, UC Riverside.
Division algebras and supersymmetry II (with John Baez), which appeared in Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics.
An Invitation to Higher Gauge Theory (with John Baez, based on his lectures), which appeared in General Relativity and Gravitation.
Division algebras and supersymmetry I (with John Baez), which appeared in Superstrings, Geometry, Topology, and C*-algebras, edited by Doran, Friedman and Rosenberg.
The Algebra of Grand Unified Theories (with John Baez) which appeared in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. Also available as its own webpage.

Popularizations

The Strangest Numbers in String Theory (with John Baez), an expository article about the octonions, which appeared in the May 2011 issue of Scientific American.

Advising

Nino Scalbi, PhD 2019 - 2023, Instituto Superior Técnico, supported by a fellowship from LisMath. Co-advised with Roger Picken.
Diogo Freire de Andrade, PhD 2021 - 2025, Instituto Superior Técnico, supported by a fellowship from FCT.

If you are interested in doing a PhD with me, please get in touch!

Seminars

I am one of the organizers of the TQFT Club, with Roger Picken and Marko Stošić.

Recent Talks

Bundle gerbes on Lie supergroups, 19 November 2021, Geometry and Topology Seminar, University of Waterloo.
Bundle gerbes on Lie supergroups, 4 October 2021, Pure Spinors, Superalgebras, and Holomorphic Twists, University of Heidelberg.
Geometric quantization and the Borel--Weil theorem, minicourse, 6-17 September 2021, University of Bologna.
Bundle gerbes on Lie supergroups, 14 June 2021, RIND mathematical physics seminar (online).
The higher algebra of supersymmetry, 29 March 2021, Octonions and the Standard Model, the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (online).
Bundle gerbes on supermanifolds, 4 March 2021, Prague mathematical physics seminar (online).
Bundle gerbes on supermanifolds, 5 June 2020, TQFT club, University of Lisbon (online).
Bundle gerbes on supermanifolds, 7 May 2020, SuperDay in Alessandria, University of Eastern Piedmont (online).
Higher gauge theory on supermanifolds, 8 November 2019, Mathematical Physics Seminar, University of Lyon.
The equivariant brane bouquet, 22 May 2019, University of Malaga.
Division algebras and the brane bouquet, 15 February 2019, Geometric Structures in Mathematics and Physics, University of Bologna.
Division algebras and supersymmetry, 14 February 2019, Geometric Structures in Mathematics and Physics, University of Bologna.