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AdS/CFT duality AdS/CFT duality

AdS/CFT Courses & Lecture Series

This page collects high-quality AdS/CFT / holography learning resources: complete course sites, recorded lecture series, lecture notes, summer-school proceedings, and a few indispensable pedagogical reviews. It is meant for graduate students and researchers who want a reliable entry point into the subject.

How to use this page

Section titled “How to use this page”

Level guide. G0 = approachable with graduate QFT/GR and little or no string theory; G1 = standard graduate AdS/CFT; G2 = specialized or more technical.

Format guide. notes = written notes or review; videos = recorded lectures; problems = exercises/example sheets; proceedings = summer-school volume; archive = searchable talk portal.

Best entry points at a glance

Section titled “Best entry points at a glance”
GoalStart withThen read/watch
A complete first course with videosMIT OCW 8.821Klebanov TASI, Maldacena TASI, MAGOO review
A modern bottom-up route with minimal string theoryKaplan, Lectures on AdS/CFT from the Bottom UpPenedones TASI, Skenderis holographic renormalization
A compact current written courseBenini, Brief Introduction to AdS/CFTPolchinski TASI, Hubeny review
Practical holography / numerical and analytic examplesNatsuume, AdS/CFT Duality User GuideBaggioli mini-course, Hartnoll / Herzog notes
Condensed matter applicationsMcGreevy + HartnollKITP AdS/CMT program, Herzog superconductivity notes
Entanglement, QEC, bulk reconstructionVan RaamsdonkHarlow Jerusalem lectures, Harlow TASI, Engelhardt TASI 2021
CFT/AdS bootstrap and Mellin amplitudesPenedones TASIPerlmutter TASI 2021, modern holographic correlator papers
AdS₃/CFT₂ and BTZ black holesKraus lecturesMaloney TASI 2021 lectures
AdS₂ / SYK / chaosSárosi notesSaad TASI 2021, Stanford/SYK lecture series
Integrability in AdS₅/CFT₄Beisert et al. review collectionSpecialized spin-chain and Bethe-ansatz lecture notes
Section titled “Recommended study paths”

Path A — Standard graduate on-ramp: strings → branes → dictionary

Section titled “Path A — Standard graduate on-ramp: strings → branes → dictionary”
  1. MIT OCW 8.821 for black holes, holography, large-N, strings, D-branes, and the basic dictionary.
  2. Klebanov TASI and Maldacena TASI 2003 for the classic string-theory perspective.
  3. Aharony–Gubser–Maldacena–Ooguri–Oz — often called the “MAGOO” review — for the broad foundational map.
  4. D’Hoker–Freedman if you want the supersymmetric gauge-theory and supergravity details.

Path B — Bottom-up / effective-field-theory holography

Section titled “Path B — Bottom-up / effective-field-theory holography”
  1. Kaplan, Lectures on AdS/CFT from the Bottom Up.
  2. Penedones, TASI lectures on AdS/CFT, especially the QFT-in-AdS and Mellin-amplitude viewpoint.
  3. Skenderis, Lecture Notes on Holographic Renormalization.
  4. Baggioli, A Practical Mini-Course on Applied Holography for worked bottom-up examples.

Path C — Applied holography / AdS/CMT

Section titled “Path C — Applied holography / AdS/CMT”
  1. McGreevy, Holographic duality with a view toward many-body physics.
  2. Hartnoll, Lectures on holographic methods for condensed matter physics.
  3. Herzog, Lectures on Holographic Superfluidity and Superconductivity.
  4. KITP 2009 AdS/CMT miniprogram for recorded talks and historical context.

Path D — Quantum information, entanglement, islands, and reconstruction

Section titled “Path D — Quantum information, entanglement, islands, and reconstruction”
  1. Van Raamsdonk, Lectures on Gravity and Entanglement.
  2. Harlow, Jerusalem Lectures on Black Holes and Quantum Information.
  3. Harlow, TASI Lectures on the Emergence of Bulk Physics in AdS/CFT.
  4. TASI 2021, especially Engelhardt, Rangamani, Perlmutter, Saad, Shenker, and related lectures.

Path E — AdS₃/CFT₂, BTZ black holes, and 2d CFT methods

Section titled “Path E — AdS₃/CFT₂, BTZ black holes, and 2d CFT methods”
  1. Kraus, Lectures on black holes and the AdS₃/CFT₂ correspondence.
  2. TASI 2021: Maloney, CFT2 and AdS3.
  3. For background, pair this with a serious 2d CFT course or Di Francesco–Mathieu–Sénéchal.

Flagship full courses and recorded lecture series

Section titled “Flagship full courses and recorded lecture series”

MIT OpenCourseWare — 8.821 String Theory and Holographic Duality (Fall 2014, Hong Liu)

Section titled “MIT OpenCourseWare — 8.821 String Theory and Holographic Duality (Fall 2014, Hong Liu)”
  • Level: G1
  • Format: videos, notes, assignments, problem sets
  • Best for: a complete graduate-level route from black-hole thermodynamics and the holographic principle to D-branes, AdS/CFT correlators, Wilson loops, finite temperature, finite chemical potential, and entanglement entropy.
  • Course page
  • Lecture notes
  • Video lectures

Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — AdS/CFT (Elective), PHYS 777 (March–May 2025)

Section titled “Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — AdS/CFT (Elective), PHYS 777 (March–May 2025)”
  • Level: G1
  • Format: videos, slides/PDFs, course archive
  • Best for: a recent recorded course covering gauge/gravity basics, holographic fluids, condensed matter applications, entanglement entropy, and black-hole information themes.
  • Instructors listed by PIRSA: David Kubizňák / Gang Xu
  • Collection page: C25013

Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — AdS/CFT (2022/2023)

Section titled “Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — AdS/CFT (2022/2023)”
  • Level: G1
  • Format: videos, slides/PDFs, course archive
  • Best for: a compact recorded course on the gauge/gravity dictionary and major applications.
  • Collection page: C23026

Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — AdS/CFT 2021/2022 (Pedro Vieira & Gang Xu)

Section titled “Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — AdS/CFT 2021/2022 (Pedro Vieira & Gang Xu)”
  • Level: G1–G2
  • Format: course archive, slides/PDFs
  • Best for: supplementary recorded material from a recent Perimeter course.
  • Course record: PIRSA:22030042

University of Cambridge / DAMTP — Course on Gauge-Gravity Duality (AdS/CFT)

Section titled “University of Cambridge / DAMTP — Course on Gauge-Gravity Duality (AdS/CFT)”
  • Level: G1
  • Format: notes, problem sheets
  • Best for: a mathematically clean Part III-style course, with topics from CFT and AdS geometry through black holes, entanglement entropy, bulk reconstruction, and entanglement wedge duality.
  • Course page

SISSA — Francesco Benini, Brief Introduction to AdS/CFT (2022)

Section titled “SISSA — Francesco Benini, Brief Introduction to AdS/CFT (2022)”
  • Level: G0–G1
  • Format: notes
  • Best for: a concise written course covering large-N limits, conformal symmetry, AdS geometry, the dictionary, holographic renormalization, Wilson loops, confinement, finite temperature, AdS/CMT response functions, and entanglement entropy.
  • PDF notes

Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — Susskind mini-course, Black Holes and Holography (2007)

Section titled “Perimeter Institute / PIRSA — Susskind mini-course, Black Holes and Holography (2007)”
  • Level: G0–G1
  • Format: videos, PDFs
  • Best for: the conceptual roots: black holes, holography, entropy, complementarity, and the intuition behind gauge/gravity duality.
  • Collection page: C07003

Summer schools and institute programs

Section titled “Summer schools and institute programs”

TASI 2021 — Black Holes, Quantum Information, and Dualities

Section titled “TASI 2021 — Black Holes, Quantum Information, and Dualities”

Especially relevant entries:

KITP / UCSB — Quantum Criticality and the AdS/CFT Correspondence (June–July 2009)

Section titled “KITP / UCSB — Quantum Criticality and the AdS/CFT Correspondence (June–July 2009)”
  • Level: G1–G2
  • Format: program, recorded talks, slides, audio/podcasts
  • Best for: the historical launchpad of AdS/CMT as a research area, with tutorial lectures and talks connecting quantum criticality, transport, superconductivity, entanglement, and holography.
  • Program overview
  • Online talks portal

Core lecture notes and reviews

Section titled “Core lecture notes and reviews”

Classic foundations

Section titled “Classic foundations”
  • Maldacena — The Large N Limit of Superconformal Field Theories and Supergravity. The original proposal. arXiv:hep-th/9711200
  • Gubser–Klebanov–Polyakov — Gauge Theory Correlators from Non-Critical String Theory. One half of the original correlator prescription. arXiv:hep-th/9802109
  • Witten — Anti De Sitter Space and Holography. The other half of the original correlator prescription, including the mass/dimension relation. arXiv:hep-th/9802150
  • Aharony–Gubser–Maldacena–Ooguri–Oz — Large N Field Theories, String Theory and Gravity. The canonical big review. arXiv:hep-th/9905111
  • Klebanov — TASI Lectures: Introduction to the AdS/CFT Correspondence. Classic TASI notes with correlators and examples. arXiv:hep-th/0009139
  • Maldacena — TASI 2003 Lectures on AdS/CFT. Compact classic introduction plus the plane-wave limit. arXiv:hep-th/0309246
  • D’Hoker–Freedman — Supersymmetric gauge theories and the AdS/CFT correspondence. Detailed SUSY/supergravity-oriented lectures. arXiv:hep-th/0201253

Broad introductions

Section titled “Broad introductions”
  • Horowitz–Polchinski — Gauge/gravity duality. Pedagogical review with a broad physics viewpoint. arXiv:gr-qc/0602037
  • Polchinski — Introduction to Gauge/Gravity Duality. TASI 2010 lectures. arXiv:1010.6134
  • Hubeny — The AdS/CFT correspondence. Helpful for readers coming from GR and causal-structure intuition. arXiv:1501.00007
  • Zaffaroni — Introduction to the AdS/CFT correspondence. Introductory notes designed not to assume prior exposure to string theory or D-branes. PDF
  • Nastase — Introduction to AdS-CFT. Self-contained notes that review much of the needed QFT, GR, SUSY, supergravity, strings, and CFT background. arXiv:0712.0689
  • Ramallo — Introduction to the AdS/CFT correspondence. Pedagogical school lectures with a minimal string-theory introduction. arXiv:1310.4319
  • Erdmenger — Introduction to Gauge/Gravity Duality. TASI 2017 lectures connecting string motivation, quantum information ideas, and holographic Kondo physics. arXiv:1807.09872
  • Natsuume — AdS/CFT Duality User Guide. Book-length, application-oriented introduction for beginning graduate students and researchers from nearby fields. arXiv:1409.3575

Technical methods and “working holographer” references

Section titled “Technical methods and “working holographer” references”

Holographic dictionary, correlators, and renormalization

Section titled “Holographic dictionary, correlators, and renormalization”
  • Skenderis — Lecture Notes on Holographic Renormalization. The standard pedagogical reference for sources, vevs, counterterms, Ward identities, anomalies, and renormalized correlation functions. arXiv:hep-th/0209067
  • Penedones — TASI lectures on AdS/CFT. Excellent for the QFT-in-AdS viewpoint, embedding-space CFT tools, boundary operators, and Mellin amplitudes. arXiv:1608.04948
  • Baggioli — A Practical Mini-Course on Applied Holography. Very useful for explicit computations, hydrodynamics, QCD-inspired models, condensed matter examples, and numerical/Mathematica workflows. arXiv:1908.02667

Bootstrap, Mellin space, and holographic correlators

Section titled “Bootstrap, Mellin space, and holographic correlators”
  • Penedones — TASI lectures on AdS/CFT. Best first stop for Mellin amplitudes in a pedagogical AdS/CFT setting. arXiv:1608.04948
  • Perlmutter — Bootstrap for AdS/CFT. TASI 2021 lectures/proceedings on modern CFT bootstrap ideas in holography. TASI topic page, PoS(TASI2021)008

Integrability

Section titled “Integrability”
  • Beisert et al. — Review of AdS/CFT Integrability: An Overview. Entry point to the major review collection on planar AdS₅ × S⁵ / 𝒩 = 4 SYM integrability. arXiv:1012.3982

Condensed matter and finite-density applications (AdS/CMT)

Section titled “Condensed matter and finite-density applications (AdS/CMT)”
  • Hartnoll — Lectures on holographic methods for condensed matter physics. Equilibrium, transport, and superconductivity, with background for high-energy readers. arXiv:0903.3246
  • McGreevy — Holographic duality with a view toward many-body physics. Written for condensed matter physicists; avoids string theory and supersymmetry where possible. arXiv:0909.0518, KITP record
  • Sachdev — Condensed matter and AdS/CFT. Quantum critical transport, finite-temperature dynamics, and connections to non-Fermi-liquid physics. arXiv:1002.2947
  • Herzog — Lectures on Holographic Superfluidity and Superconductivity. Linear response, Ward identities, transport, and holographic superconductors. arXiv:0904.1975
  • Horowitz — Introduction to Holographic Superconductors. A compact introduction to holographic superconductor models. arXiv:1002.1722
  • ASC / LMU Munich — AdS/CMT preparatory materials. Curated reading and videos. Curated page

Quantum information, entanglement, and bulk reconstruction

Section titled “Quantum information, entanglement, and bulk reconstruction”
  • Van Raamsdonk — Lectures on Gravity and Entanglement. Geometry from entanglement; accessible with GR and QFT background. arXiv:1609.00026
  • Harlow — Jerusalem Lectures on Black Holes and Quantum Information. Black-hole information, firewalls, holography, and QI ideas. arXiv:1409.1231
  • Harlow — TASI Lectures on the Emergence of Bulk Physics in AdS/CFT. Semiclassical bulk duals, bulk reconstruction, quantum error correction, tensor networks, and the quantum RT formula. arXiv:1802.01040, PoS TASI2017
  • Engelhardt — Quantum Information in AdS/CFT. TASI 2021 lectures on entanglement wedges, quantum extremal surfaces, and modern holographic QI. TASI topic page, PoS(TASI2021)004
  • Chen et al. — Quantum Information in Holographic Duality. Self-contained pedagogical review. arXiv:2108.09188

AdS₂ / SYK / chaos / random matrices

Section titled “AdS₂ / SYK / chaos / random matrices”
  • Sárosi — AdS₂ Holography and the SYK Model. Standard pedagogical notes on the AdS₂/SYK connection. arXiv:1711.08482
  • Saad — TASI lectures on random matrix universality in AdS/CFT. Random matrices, late-time black holes, and AdS/CFT. PoS(TASI2021)011
  • TASI 2021 late-time black holes / wormholes lectures. Useful companion material for JT gravity, spectral statistics, and modern wormhole discussions. TASI lecture topics

AdS₃/CFT₂ and low-dimensional gravity

Section titled “AdS₃/CFT₂ and low-dimensional gravity”
  • Kraus — Lectures on black holes and the AdS₃/CFT₂ correspondence. BTZ black holes, asymptotically AdS₃ gravity, holographic renormalization, partition functions, and higher-derivative corrections. arXiv:hep-th/0609074
  • Maloney — CFT2 and AdS3. TASI 2021 lectures. TASI topic page, PoS(TASI2021)006

A 12-week reading-seminar template

Section titled “A 12-week reading-seminar template”
WeekTopicSuggested resources
1Holographic principle, black holes, large NMIT 8.821 Lectures 1–9; MAGOO §§1–2
2Strings, branes, and the origin of AdS₅ × S⁵MIT 8.821 Lectures 10–17; Maldacena TASI
3CFT basics and AdS geometryBenini §§2–4; Cambridge topics 1–2
4The GKPW dictionary and scalar correlatorsMIT Lectures 18–21; Klebanov; Skenderis
5Holographic renormalizationSkenderis; Benini §7
6Wilson loops and probesMIT Lecture 22; Maldacena TASI; D’Hoker–Freedman
7Black branes, finite temperature, chemical potentialMIT Lecture 23; Benini §§9–10; Natsuume
8Transport and real-time responseHartnoll; Herzog; Baggioli
9Entanglement entropy and RT/HRTMIT Lecture 24; Van Raamsdonk; Cambridge topics 7–9
10Bulk reconstruction and QECHarlow TASI; Engelhardt TASI 2021
11AdS/CMT or AdS₂/SYK specializationMcGreevy/Hartnoll or Sárosi/Saad
12Bootstrap, Mellin space, and modern correlatorsPenedones; Perlmutter TASI 2021

Handy archives and portals

Section titled “Handy archives and portals”

Citation and acknowledgment

Section titled “Citation and acknowledgment”

If you reuse material from an external course — figures, exercises, problem sets, lecture notes, or text — follow the license and citation guidance on the original page. For example, MIT OpenCourseWare has its own licensing terms, and individual lecture-note PDFs or proceedings may have separate reuse policies.