Applications of AdS-CFT to strongly coupled quantum field theory

The conjectured AdS-CFT correspondence implies that certain questions about specific strongly coupled quantum field theories may have a dual geometric formulation as a problem in an exotic, but classical, gravitational system. Identifying general features of this gravitational system then imply constraints on the behaviour of these quantum field theories. This project will focus of this identification of universal features, following on from recent work on Casimir energies and bounds on spectra. Also questions about existence of solutions to the classical gravitational problem and the dynamical stability of these solutions will be addressed. Both analytic and numerical methods will be used to tackle these classical gravitational questions, and the focus will always be on identifying features that translate into natural properties and constraints for the dual field theory.