Wave dynamics in topological materials has been widely studied recently. A striking feature is the existence of robust and chiral wave propagations that have potential applications in many fields. A common way to realize such wave patterns is to utilize Dirac points which carry topological indices and is supported by the symmetries of the media. In this work, we investigate these phenomena in photonic media. Starting with Maxwell's equations with a honeycomb material weight as well as the nonlinear Kerr effect, we first prove the existence of Dirac points in the dispersion surfaces of transverse electric and magnetic Maxwell operators under very general assumptions of the material weight. Our assumptions on the material weight are almost the minimal requirements to ensure the existence of Dirac points in a general hexagonal photonic crystal. We then derive the associated wave packet dynamics in the scenario where the honeycomb structure is weakly modulated. It turns out the reduced envelope equation is generally a two-dimensional nonlinear Dirac equation with a spatially varying mass. By studying the reduced envelope equation with a domain-wall-like mass term, we realize the subtle wave motions which are chiral and immune to local defects. The underlying mechanism is the existence of topologically protected linear line modes, also referred to as edge states. However, we show that these robust linear modes do not survive with nonlinearity. We demonstrate the existence of nonlinear line modes, which can propagate in the nonlinear media based on high-accuracy numerical computations. Moreover, we also report a new type of nonlinear modes which are localized in both directions.

We review first Azumaya geometry and D-branes in the realm of algebraic geometry along the line of Polchinski-Grothendieck Ansatz from our earlier work and then use it as background to introduce Azumaya C^{\infty} -manifolds with a fundamental module and morphisms therefrom to a projective complex manifold. This gives us a description of D-branes of A-type. Donaldson's picture of Lagrangian and special Lagrangian submanifolds as selected from the zero-locus of a moment map on a related space of maps can be merged into the setting. As a pedagogical toy model, we study D-branes of A-type in a Calabi-Yau torus. Simple as it is, it reveals several features of D-branes, including their assembling/disassembling. The 4th theme of Sec. 2.4, the 2nd theme of Sec. 4.2, and Sec. 4.3 are to be read respectively with Gmez-Sharpe (arXiv: hep-th/0008150), Donagi-Katz-Sharpe (arXiv: hep-th/0309270), and Denef (arXiv: hep-th/0107152). Some string-theoretical remarks are given at the end of each section.

We focus on two types of coherent states, the coherent states of multi graviton states and the coherent states of giant graviton states, in the context of gauge/gravity correspondence. We conveniently use a phase shift operator and its actions on the superpositions of these coherent states. We find N-state Schrodinger cat states which approach the one-row Young tableau states, with fidelity between them asymptotically reaches 1 at large N. The quantum Fisher information of these states is proportional to the variance of the excitation energy of the underlying states, and characterizes the localizability of the states in the angular direction in the phase space. We analyze the correlation and entanglement between gravitational degrees of freedom using different regions of the phase space plane in bubbling AdS. The correlation between two entangled rings in the phase space plane is related to the area of the annulus between the two rings. We also analyze two types of noisy coherent states, which can be viewed as interpolated states that interpolate between a pure coherent state in the noiseless limit and a maximally mixed state in the large noise limit.

We prove the following stronger version of the positivity of quasi-local energy (mass) stated by Liu and Yau: the quasi-local energy of each connected component of the boundary of a compact spacelike hypersurface which satisfies the local energy condition is strictly positive unless the spacetime is flat along the spacelike hypersurface and the boundary of the spacelike hypersurface is connected.

The classification and construction of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting boson and fermion systems have become a fascinating theoretical direction in recent years. It has been shown that (generalized) group cohomology theory or cobordism theory gives rise to a complete classification of SPT phases in interacting boson or spin systems. The construction and classification of SPT phases in interacting fermion systems are much more complicated, especially in three dimensions. In this work, we revisit this problem based on an equivalence class of fermionic symmetric local unitary transformations. We construct very general fixed-point SPT wave functions for interacting fermion systems. We naturally reproduce the partial classifications given by special group supercohomology theory, and we show that with an additional \tilde{B}H^2(G_b,\mathbb{Z}_2) structure [the so-called obstruction-free subgroup of H^2(G_b,\mathbb{Z}_2)], a complete classification of SPT phases for three-dimensional interacting fermion systems with a total symmetry group G_f = G_b × \mathbb{Z}^f_2 can be obtained for unitary symmetry group G_b. We also discuss the procedure for deriving a general group supercohomology theory in arbitrary dimensions.