Hosted by: Soeren Schlichting

I will discuss the use of semi-classics and instanton calculus and argue that, contrary to common wisdom, complex solutions of the equations of motion are a necessary ingredient of any semi-classical expansion. In particular, I will show that without the complex solutions semi-classical expansion of supersymmetric theories cannot be reconciled with supersymmetry. This has a natural interpretation in the Picard-Lefschetz theory.