Member Seminar Speaker: Zi Yang Kang Title: Deformations of Landau-Ginzburg models and their fibers Abstract: In mirror symmetry, the dual object to a Fano variety is a Landau-Ginzburg model. Broadly, a Landau-Ginzburg model is quasi-projective variety Y with a superpotential function w, but not all such pairs correspond to Fano varieties under mirror symmetry, so a […]
Algebraic Geometry in String Theory Seminar Speaker: Andrew Harder, Lehigh University Title: Deformations of Landau-Ginzburg models and their fibers Abstract: In mirror symmetry, the dual object to a Fano variety is a Landau-Ginzburg model. Broadly, a Landau-Ginzburg model is quasi-projective variety Y with a superpotential function w, but not all such pairs correspond to Fano varieties […]
Speaker: Matthew Foreman (UC Irvine) Title: Impossibility results in classical dynamical systems Abstract: In 1932, motivated by questions in statistical and celestial mechanics, von Neumann proposed classifying the statistical behavior of dynamical systems. In the 1960's, motivated by work of Poincaré, Smale proposed classifying the qualitative behavior of dynamical systems. These questions laid the groundwork for enormous amounts of work, but […]
https://youtu.be/SCIi6R_uTZM General Relativity Seminar Speaker: David Fajman (Vienna) Title: Fluid stabilization in slowly expanding cosmological spacetime Abstract: Relativistic fluids are known to form shocks during their evolution from near-homogeneous initial data. In expanding spacetimes, shock formation is suppressed, if the expansion is sufficiently strong. We refer to this effect as fluid stabilization. The occurrence of this phenomenon depends […]
CMSA Q and A Seminar Speakers: Michael Hopkins (Harvard Math) and Minhea Popa (Harvard Math) Topics: Mike Hopkins: What are topological modular forms? Mihnea Popa: What is the abundance conjecture and why should it to be true?
Quantum Matter Seminar Speaker: Cameron Krulewski (MIT) and Leon Liu (Harvard) Title: A Long Exact Sequence in Symmetry Breaking Abstract: We study defects in symmetry breaking phases, such as domain walls, vortices, and hedgehogs. In particular, we focus on the localized gapless excitations that sometimes occur at the cores of these objects. These are topologically protected by an ’t […]
https://youtu.be/a2S_-pl6onM New Technologies in Mathematics Seminar Speaker: Gabriel Poesia, Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford University Title: Peano: Learning Formal Mathematical Reasoning Without Human Data Abstract: Peano is a theorem proving environment in which a computational agent can start tabula rasa in a new domain, learn to solve problems through curiosity-driven exploration, and create its own higher level […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Antoine Maillard (ETH Zürich) Title: Fitting ellipsoids to random points Abstract: We consider the problem of exactly fitting an ellipsoid (centered at 0) to n standard Gaussian random vectors in dimension d, for very large n and d. This problem has connections to questions in statistical learning and theoretical computer science, and is […]
Active Matter Seminar Speaker: Alexander Grosberg (NYU) Title: Nuclear chromodynamics: non-equilibrium phase transition in the nucleus of a living cell Abstract: Nucleus of a living cell houses a cell genome - a polymer called chromatin, which is a functional form of DNA. It is very long, e.g., 2 meters long for every human cell. Nucleus is […]
https://youtu.be/Jf8ONC2tUfc Topological Quantum Matter Seminar Speaker: Bruno Mera, Instituto Superior Tecnico Title: Uniqueness of Landau levels and their analogs with higher Chern numbers Abstract: Lowest Landau level wavefunctions are eigenstates of the Hamiltonian of a charged par- ticle in two dimensions under a uniform magnetic field. They are known to be holomorphic both in real and momentum spaces, […]
Algebraic Geometry in String Theory Seminar Speaker: Sheldon Katz, UIUC Title: Stacky small resolutions of determinantal octic double solids and noncommutative Gopakumar-Vafa invariants Abstract: A determinantal octic double solid is the double cover X of P^3 branched along the degree 8 determinant of a symmetric matrix of homogeneous forms on P^3. These X are nodal […]
Speaker: Brian Williams (Boston University) Title: Koszul duality in QFT Abstract: We will describe appearances of the algebraic phenomena of Koszul duality in the context of boundary conditions and defects in quantum field theory. Primarily motivated by topological string theory, this point of view was pioneered by Costello and Li in their proposal for a […]