Mirror symmetry and log del Pezzo surfaces

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Algebraic Geometry in String Theory Seminar Speaker: Franco Rota, University of Glasgow Title: Mirror symmetry and log del Pezzo surfaces Abstract: The homological mirror symmetry conjecture predicts a duality, expressed in terms of categorical equivalences, between the complex geometry of a variety X (the B side) and the symplectic geometry of its mirror object Y (the A side). Motivated […]

Controlling chaotic advection in 2D active nematics

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Active Matter Seminar Speaker: Kevin Mitchell, University of California, Merced Title: Controlling chaotic advection in 2D active nematics Abstract: Recent years have seen a surge of interest in active materials, in which energy injected at the microscale gives rise to mesoscale coherent motion. One prominent example is an active 2D "liquid crystal" composed of microtubules in […]

Geometry of Generalized Lienard Equations, Contact Geometry and Metriplectic Structure

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Speaker: Partha Guha, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi Title: Geometry of Generalized Lienard Equations, Contact Geometry and Metriplectic Structure Abstract: We start with a self-contained brief review of the construction of non-standard Lagrangian and Hamiltonian structures using the Jacobi Last Multiplier for the (generalized) reduced Lienard equations satisfying Chiellini integrability condition, we then explore its connection […]

Love and Naturalness

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Seminar Speaker: Mikhail Ivanov (MIT) Title: Love and Naturalness Abstract: Recent progress in gravitational wave astronomy has spurred the development of efficient tools to describe gravitational binary dynamics. One such tool is classical worldline effective field theory (EFT). In the first part of my talk, I will show how to […]

Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture Speaker: Michael Borinsky, ETH Zurich Title: On the Euler characteristic of the commutative graph complex and the top-weight cohomology of the moduli space of curves

Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Mathematical Aspects of Scattering Amplitudes Lecture Speaker: Chaim Even-Zohar, Technion Title: Amplituhedron tiles and twistor polynomials

Amplituhedra, Cluster Algebras, and Positive Geometry

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Amplituhedra, Cluster Algebras, and Positive Geometry Dates: May 29-31, 2024 Location: Harvard CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge MA 02138 & via Zoom In recent years, a remarkable paradigm shift has occurred in understanding quantum observables in particle physics and cosmology, revealing their emergence from underlying novel mathematical objects known as positive geometries. The conference will […]

Corks for exotic diffeomorphisms

CMSA 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

https://youtu.be/HWL5Rg9B624 Speaker: Slava Krushkal, University of Virginia Title: Corks for exotic diffeomorphisms Abstract: Exotic smooth structures on simply-connected 4-manifolds are known to be related by cork twists: cutting out and re-gluing certain smooth contractible submanifolds. Work in progress, joint with A. Mukherjee, M. Powell, and T. Warren, provides a localization result for exotic diffeomorphisms of 4-manifolds. I will also discuss applications […]

Can embedding problems be used to distinguish S^4 from other (possible) homotopy 4-spheres?

CMSA 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

https://youtu.be/18eVp3fOh-4 Speaker: Michael Freedman, Harvard CMSA Title: Can embedding problems be used to distinguish S^4 from other (possible) homotopy 4-spheres? Abstract: There are approaches in the literature (using Khovanov homology) to detecting a homotopy 4-sphere, via the 4-ball genus of knots. I'd like to suggest moving from surfaces to 3-manifolds, that is approaching the problem […]

Phases and Phase Transitions of Spin Chains with Non-invertible Symmetries

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Seminar Speaker: Arkya Chatterjee (MIT) Title: Phases and Phase Transitions of Spin Chains with Non-invertible Symmetries Abstract: Non-invertible symmetries are often emergent at low-energies in gapless states of quantum matter. It is useful to construct lattice models that have these as exact symmetries in order to provide a UV-complete […]

Landscape of Tensor Network States Preparable from Measurement

CMSA Room G10 CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, United States

Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Seminar Speaker: Rahul Sahay (Harvard) Title: Landscape of Tensor Network States Preparable from Measurement Abstract: Measurements and feedback have emerged as powerful resources for creating many-body quantum states. However, a detailed understanding of what is possible is restricted to fixed-point representatives of phases of matter. In this talk, we go beyond this, […]

Workshop on Fibration and Degeneration in Calabi-Yau Geometry

20 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138, MA, MA, United States

Workshop on Fibration and Degeneration in Calabi-Yau Geometry Dates: June 24-26, 2024 Location: Harvard CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Organizer: Chuck Doran, Harvard CMSA Calabi-Yau manifolds occupy a central place in geometry. Their critical role as the cut-case between basic Fano building blocks and the zoo of General Type manifolds is key to […]