Introduction to the Spectrum of N=4 SYM and the Quantum Spectral Curve

Abstract

This review is based on the lectures given by the author at the Les Houches Summer School 2016. It describes the recently developed Quantum Spectral Curve (QSC) for a non-perturbative planar spectrum of N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory in a pedagogical way starting from the harmonic oscillator and avoiding a long historical path. We give many examples and provide exercises. At the end we give a list of the recent and possible future applications of the QSC.