During the 2025–26 academic year, the CMSA will be hosting a Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar, organized by Max Huebner and Saman Habibi Esfahani.
It will take place on Thursdays from 1:30–2:30 pm ET in Room G10, CMSA, 20 Garden Street.
To subscribe to the Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar mailing list, please visit this link.
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Dylan Galt, Harvard Title: Dimension Reduction and Adiabatic Limits of Generalized ASD Instantons Abstract: I will begin by explaining a dimension reduction result for Tian's generalized ASD instantons over product manifolds, which generalizes work of Yuanqi Wang on codimension-one reduction and includes the cases of G2 and Spin(7) instantons as well […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Andrés Franco Valiente, UC Berkeley Title: Tropical-Topological (Tropological) Sigma Models Abstract: Tropical geometry provides a powerful bridge between complex and combinatorial worlds, allowing certain curve-counting invariants to be computed in a piecewise-linear “tropical” limit. Building on Mikhalkin’s insight that Gromov–Witten invariants can be recovered from tropical curves, this talk revisits Mikhalkin's […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Surya Raghavendran, Yale Title: Towards a Dolbeault AGT correspondence Abstract: The AGT correspondence and its extensions propose geometric constructions of vertex algebras and their modules from the cohomology of various moduli spaces of sheaves on surfaces. Physically, the correspondence is illuminated throgh the holomorphic–topological twist of the six-dimensional N=(2,0) superconformal field […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Tristan Collins, University of Toronto Title: Complete Calabi-Yau Metrics and Optimal Transport Abstract: I will discuss the connection between optimal transport and the existence of complete Calabi-Yau metrics on log Calabi-Yau varieties. I will explain how the geometric problem of constructing complete Calabi-Yau metrics gives rise to problems in the boundary […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Monica Jinwoo Kang, Texas A&M University Title: Index from a point Abstract: We argue that protected data of 4d N=2 SCFTs admits a purely algebro-geometric characterization. We conjecture that both the Macdonald index (and hence the Schur index) and the Higgs branch are encoded by a bifiltered affine scheme determined by […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Yinan Wang, Peking University Title: On E7+1/2 gauge theory Abstract: We propose that an exotic gauge theory based on the intermediate Lie algebra E7+1/2 naturally appears in the landscape of 6d F-theory. We give strong evidence of this proposal with 6d anomaly cancellation, dual M-theory geometry and elliptic genus of the single-string […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Gabor Szekelyhidi, Northwestern University Title: Gromov-Hausdorff limits of collapsing Calabi-Yau fibrations Abstract: A well studied problem is the metric behavior of Calabi-Yau metrics on a fibration in a family of Kahler classes that collapses the fibers. I will discuss recent progress showing that the Gromov-Hausdorff limit can be identified […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Greg Moore, Rutgers University Title: Topics in the Relation of Four-Manifold Invariants and Supersymmetric Field Theory Abstract: We will begin with a review of topological twisting as a choice of background fields. We then review the standard paradigm for the formulation of Donaldson invariants as correlation functions in twisted supersymmetric […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Mirjam Cvetic, University of Pennsylvania Title: Higher Symmetries, Eta Invariants and Anomaly Theories Abstract: In recent years, much progress has been made in understanding the extra-dimensional origin of higher symmetry structures of many quantum field theories (QFTs) obtained via geometric engineering. Among others, our understanding of anomaly structures in QFTs has […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Vivek Shende (Syddansk Universitet & UC Berkeley) Title: Fukaya categories and higher representation theory Abstract: I will explain how Lagrangian Floer homology in certain monopole moduli spaces recovers the Khovanov homology and its relatives, by a description strikingly similar to the Oszvath-Szabo Heegard-Floer theory. I will also explain how the […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker: Surena Hozoori (Brandeis) Title: Strongly adapted contact geometry of Anosov 3-flows Abstract: We will discuss some recent developments in the contact geometric theory of Anosov 3-flows, whose roots go back to the works of Mitsumatsu and Eliashberg-Thurston in the mid 1990s. In particular, we provide a contact geometric characterization […]
Differential Geometry and Physics Seminar Speaker. Emily Autumn Windes (New Uzbekistan University) Title: Gauge theory on Hyperkähler manifolds Abstract: In this talk, I describe various distinguished classes of connections on Hyperkähler manifolds and their dimensional reductions. Then, I describe a construction of new examples of Sp(2)-instantons, primitive HYM connections, and Spin(7)-instantons with symmetry on the manifold T*CP2. This talk […]