Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley & University of Oxford

Abstract: I will argue that the TTbar deformation of a field theory may be understood as a coupling to an elastic medium, with, however, unusual properties. In the fixed stress ensemble the evolution equations are then much simpler compared to the usual fixed geometry, and are explicitly modular invariant. In fact they are those of a simple fluid, for which, however, the singular initial conditions of conformal field theory may lead to the formation either of shock waves, or collapse, giving rise to the observed singular behavior of the partition function in fixed geometry.

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