Today

  • Introduction to the probabilistic approach to Louville theory III

    Science Center 507 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

    Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar Speaker: Bowen Yang, CMSA Title: Introduction to the probabilistic approach to Louville theory III Abstract: I will continue with the construction of Liouville CFT from probabilistic methods, following a review by Guillarmou, Kupiainen, and Rhodes (arXiv:2403.12780). The talk will emphasize technical aspects of Gaussian free fields (GFF) and contrast them with Brownian […]

  • 3-d Mirror Symmetry

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

    Colloquium Speaker: Ben Webster, University of Waterloo & Perimeter Institute Title: 3-d Mirror Symmetry Abstract: I'll give an introduction (or update, for those who've been introduced) to 3d mirror symmetry from the perspective of a mathematician.  

  • Quantum K-theory at roots of unity

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

    Colloquium Speaker: Andrey Smirnov, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Title: Quantum K-theory at roots of unity Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss a version of quantum K-theory introduced by A.Okounkov, which can be defined through quasimap counts. In this framework, the quantum K-theory ring is obtained as a specialization of the equivariant […]

  • Instantons on Taub-NUT space and Bow Construction

    Science Center 507 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

    Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar Speaker: Anadil Saeed Rao, Northeastern University Title: Instantons on Taub-NUT space and Bow Construction Abstract: In this talk I will discuss Yang-Mills Instantons in a very special geometric setting: the Taub-NUT space, which itself is a Gravitational Instanton. In the first part of the talk I will review the essentials of gravitational […]

  • Modeling the emergence of complex cortical structure from simple precursors in the brain: maps, hierarchies, and modules

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

    Colloquium Speaker: Ila Fiete, MIT Title: Modeling the emergence of complex cortical structure from simple precursors in the brain: maps, hierarchies, and modules Abstract: Modular and hierarchical structures are ubiquitous in the brain. Two distinct hypotheses for such morphogenesis involve genetic specification (the positional information hypothesis) or spontaneous structure emergence from symmetry breaking (the pattern […]

  • Classifying Space for Phases of Matrix Product States

    Science Center 507 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

    Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar Speakers: Bryan Wang Peng Jun (Harvard) and Bowen Yang (CMSA) Title: Classifying Space for Phases of Matrix Product States Abstract: In this talk we will introduce recent work of Beaudry-Hermele-Pflaum-Qi-Spiegel-Stephen (arXiv:2501.14241), on constructing a classifying space for phases of matrix product states (MPS).

  • Bass-Note Spectra of locally uniform geometries

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

    Colloquium Speaker: Peter Sarnak, IAS & Princeton University Title: Bass-Note Spectra of locally uniform geometries Abstract: We formulate and report on the problem of the Bass-Note Spectrum of an invariant operator as one varies over locally uniform geometries. In the Euclidean setting this recasts classical problems of Mahler from the geometry of numbers in a new […]

  • Algebraic approach to the bow construction

    Science Center 507 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

    Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar Speakers: Anadil Saeed Rao (Northeastern) and Vasily Krylov (CMSA/Harvard) Title: Algebraic approach to the bow construction Abstract: Anadil will finish his part of the talk. Vasily will then explain how to understand moduli spaces of instantons on R^4, monopoles on R^3, and instantons on Taub-NUT spaces algebraically as so-called bow varieties. We […]

  • Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

    Colloquium Speaker: Ariel Procaccia, Harvard University Title: Thinking Outside the Ballot Box Abstract: How should one design unprecedented democratic processes capable of handling enormous sets of alternatives like all possible policies, bills, or statements? I argue that this challenge can be addressed through a framework called generative social choice, which fuses the rigor of social choice theory […]

  • Factorizations for data analysis

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

    Colloquium Speaker: Anna Seigal, Harvard University Title: Factorizations for data analysis Abstract: We can find structure in data by factoring it into building blocks, which should be interpretable for the context at hand. A classical example is principal component analysis (PCA), which uses the eigendecomposition of the covariance matrix to find axes of variation in a dataset. Starting from […]

  • Fukaya category and gauge theory

    Science Center 507 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge

    Geometry and Quantum Theory Seminar Speaker: Saman Habibi Esfahani, Harvard CMSA Title: Fukaya category and gauge theory Abstract: After setting up some background, I will discuss the Fukaya $A_\ infty$-category and several instances where it appears in gauge theory, such as in the study of flat connections on Riemann surfaces, holomorphic sections of some hyperkähler […]