String Theory Journal Club

Random matrix models have been known for a while to have connections to character theory and random partitions; using these, various phenomena on the matrix model side can be quantitatively studied. In this talk I will present some recent results and upcoming work in this direction. First, we take up the unitary Gross-Witten-Wadia model, and its orthogonal and symplectic generalizations, and describe the large N phase space structure for arbitrary coupling constants using the random partition approach. Second, we discuss how a random partition description can be made for other partition functions, taking the N=1 superconformal index for quiver gauge theories as an example.