• Active Matter Controlling Epithelial Dynamics

    Abstract: My lab is interested in the active and adaptive materials that underlie control of cell shape.  This has centered around understanding force transmission and sensing within the actin cytoskeleton.  I will first review our current understanding of the types of active matter that can be constructed by actin polymers.  I will then turn to our […]

  • 2/10/2022 – Interdisciplinary Science Seminar

    Title: Metric Algebraic Geometry Abstract: A real algebraic variety is the set of points in real Euclidean space that satisfy a system of polynomial equations. Metric algebraic geometry is the study of properties of real algebraic varieties that depend on a distance metric. In this talk, we introduce metric algebraic geometry through a discussion of Voronoi […]

  • Amplituhedra, Scattering Amplitudes and Triangulations

    Member Seminar Speaker: Matteo Parisi Title: Amplituhedra, Scattering Amplitudes and Triangulations Abstract: In this talk I will discuss about Amplituhedra – generalizations of polytopes inside the Grassmannian – recently introduced by physicists as new geometric constructions encoding interactions of elementary particles in certain Quantum Field Theories. In particular, I will explain how the problem of finding […]

  • Equiangular lines and regular graphs

    Abstract: In 1973, Lemmens and Seidel asked to determine N_alpha(r), the maximum number of equiangular lines in R^r with common angle arccos(alpha). Recently, this problem has been almost completely settled when r is exponentially large relative to 1/alpha, with the approach both relying on Ramsey’s theorem, as well as being limited by it. In this talk, […]

  • Virtual Coulomb branch and quantum K-theory

    Virtual

    Abstract: In this talk, I will introduce a virtual variant of the quantized Coulomb branch constructed by Braverman-Finkelberg-Nakajima, where the convolution product is modified by a virtual intersection. The resulting virtual Coulomb branch acts on the moduli space of quasimaps into the holomorphic symplectic quotient T^*N//G. When G is abelian, over the torus fixed points, this […]

  • Kobayashi-Hitchin correspondences for harmonic bundles and monopoles

    Virtual

    Speaker: Takuro Mochizuki (Kyoto University) Title: Kobayashi-Hitchin correspondences for harmonic bundles and monopoles Abstract:  In 1960's, Narasimhan and Seshadri discovered the equivalence between irreducible unitary flat bundles and stable bundles of degree $0$ on compact Riemann surfaces. In 1980's, Donaldson, Uhlenbeck and Yau generalized it to the equivalence between irreducible Hermitian-Einstein bundles and stable bundles on smooth […]

  • Topological Quantum Gravity and the Ricci Flow – Part I

    Virtual

    Speaker: Petr Hořava (UC Berkeley) Title: Topological Quantum Gravity and the Ricci Flow – Part I Abstract: In this sequence of talks, I will describe our work with Alexander Frenkel and Stephen Randall, in which we presented a novel topological quantum gravity, relating three previously unrelated fields:  Topological quantum field theories (of the cohomological type), the […]

  • Bootstrapping hyperbolic manifolds

    Virtual

    https://youtu.be/updzX0XPYU4 Speaker: James Bonifacio, Cambridge DAMTP Title: Bootstrapping hyperbolic manifolds Abstract: Hyperbolic manifolds are a class of Riemannian manifolds that are important in mathematics and physics, playing a prominent role in topology, number theory, and string theory. Associated with a given hyperbolic metric is a sequence of numbers corresponding to the discrete eigenvalues of the […]

  • Fall 2020 – Spring 2022 Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Archive

    This is the Fall 2020 - Spring 2022 Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics Archive page. To view current seminars, please visit the Fall 2022-Spring 2023 Quantum Matter Seminar Page As part of the program on Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics, the CMSA hosted two weekly seminars. The Quantum Matter/Quantum Field Theory seminar took place […]

  • Spin-cobordisms, surgeries and fermionic modular bootstrap

    Virtual

    Speaker: Andrea Grigoletto (SISSA & INFN) Title: Spin-cobordisms, surgeries and fermionic modular bootstrap Abstract: ‘tHooft anomalies of anomalous systems can be described via anomaly inflow by invertible theories living in one dimension higher. Thanks to this it is possible to provide a general method to determine modular transformations of anomalous 2d fermionic CFTs with general discrete symmetry […]

  • Black Hole dynamics at Large D

    Abstract: I demonstrate that black hole dynamics simplifies – without trivializing – in the limit in which the number of spacetime dimensions D in which the black holes live is taken to infinity. In the strict large D limit and under certain conditions I show the equations that govern black hole dynamics reduce to the equations describing the dynamics of a non gravitational membrane propagating in an unperturbed spacetime (e.g. flat space). In the stationary […]

  • Sparse Markov Models for High-dimensional Inference

    Abstract: Finite order Markov models are theoretically well-studied models for dependent data.  Despite their generality, application in empirical work when the order is larger than one is quite rare.  Practitioners avoid using higher order Markov models because (1) the number of parameters grow exponentially with the order, (2) the interpretation is often difficult. Mixture of transition […]