Probability Seminar Speaker: Catherine Wolfram (MIT) Title: Large deviations for the 3D dimer model Abstract: A dimer tiling of Z^d is a collection of edges such that every vertex is covered exactly once. In 2000, Cohn, Kenyon, and Propp showed that 2D dimer tilings satisfy a large deviations principle. In joint work with Nishant Chandgotia […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Tomas Berggren (MIT) Title: Geometry of the doubly periodic Aztec dimer model Abstract: Random dimer models (or equivalently tiling models) have been a subject of extensive research in mathematics and physics for several decades. In this talk, we will discuss the doubly periodic Aztec diamond dimer model of growing size, with arbitrary […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Benjamin Landon (University of Toronto) Title: Tail estimates for stationary KPZ models Abstract: The limiting distributions of the KPZ universality class exhibit tail exponents of 3/2 and 3. In this talk we will review recent work studying the upper tail exponent 3/2 in the moderate deviations regime of several KPZ models at […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Youngtak Sohn (MIT) Title: Universality of max-margin classifiers Abstract: Many modern learning methods, such as deep neural networks, are so complex that they perfectly fit the training data. Despite this, they generalize well to the unseen data. Motivated by this phenomenon, we consider high-dimensional binary classification with linearly separable data. First, we […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Nicola Kistler (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) Title: Solving spin systems, the Babylonian way Abstract: The replica method, together with Parisi’s symmetry breaking mechanism, is an extremely powerful tool to compute the limiting free energy of virtually any mean field disordered system. Unfortunately, the tool is dramatically flawed from a mathematical point […]
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 […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Jinyoung Park (NYU) Title: Thresholds Abstract: For a finite set X, a family F of subsets of X is said to be increasing if any set A that contains B in F is also in F. The p-biased product measure of F increases as p increases from 0 to 1, and often […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Jun Yin (UCLA) Title: A random matrix model towards the quantum chaos transition conjecture Abstract: The Quantum Chaos Conjecture has long fascinated researchers, postulating a critical spectrum phase transition that separates integrable systems from chaotic systems in quantum mechanics. In the realm of integrable systems, eigenvectors remain localized, and local eigenvalue statistics […]
Probability Seminar Speaker: Wei-Kuo Chen (University of Minnesota) Title: A Gaussian convexity for logarithmic moment generating function Abstract: Convex functions of Gaussian vectors are prominent objectives in many fields of mathematical studies. In this talk, I will establish a new convexity for the logarithmic moment generating function for this object and draw two consequences. The first leads to […]
CMSA Member Seminar Speaker: Iacopo Brivio (Harvard) Title: Anti-Iitaka conjecture in positive characteristic Abstract: Given a smooth projective variety, its Kodaira dimension kappa(K_X) is an important invariant that measures the rate of growth of m-pluricanonical forms as a function of m. It serves as an higher-dimensional generalization of the genus of a Riemann surface. If f : X […]
CMSA Member Seminar Speaker: Freid Tong (Harvard CMSA) Title: On complete Calabi-Yau metrics and Monge-Ampere equations Abstract: Calabi-Yau metrics are central objects in K\"ahler geometry and also string theory. The existence of Calabi-Yau metrics on compact manifolds was answered by Yau in his solution of the Calabi conjecture, but the situation in the non-compact setting is much more delicate, and many questions related to the existence […]
CMSA Member Seminar Speaker: Benjamin McKenna (Harvard) Title: The spectrum of some nonlinear random matrices Abstract: Modern data science often requires one to consider "nonlinear random matrices," a broad term for random-matrix models whose construction involves a nonlinear function applied entrywise. Such models are typically far from classical random matrix theory, and in principle entrywise nonlinearities can affect the […]