Manifold Fitting: An Invitation to Statistics

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

Probability Seminar Speaker: Zhigang Yao (Harvard CMSA/National University of Singapore) Title: Manifold Fitting: An Invitation to Statistics Abstract: This manifold fitting problem can go back to H. Whitney’s work in the early 1930s (Whitney (1992)), and finally has been answered in recent years by C. Fefferman’s works (Fefferman, 2006, 2005). The solution to the Whitney extension problem […]

Dynamics of active nematic defects on cones

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

Member Seminar Speaker: Farzan Vafa Title: Dynamics of active nematic defects on cones Abstract: In the first part of the talk, we investigate the ground-state configurations of two-dimensional liquid crystals with p-fold rotational symmetry (p-atics) on cones. The cone apex develops an effective topological charge, which in analogy to electrostatics, leads to defect absorption and emission […]

Complete Calabi-Yau metrics: Recent progress and open problems

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

Speaker: Tristan Collins, MIT Title: Complete Calabi-Yau metrics: Recent progress and open problems Abstract: Complete Calabi-Yau metrics are fundamental objects in Kahler geometry arising as singularity models or "bubbles" in degenerations of compact Calabi-Yau manifolds.  The existence of these metrics and their relationship with algebraic geometry are the subjects of several long standing conjectures due […]

Parity and Cobordism

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

Swampland Seminar Speaker: Jake McNamara (Caltech) Title: Parity and Cobordism Abstract: The swampland cobordism conjecture provides a convenient way to discuss conserved charges associated with the topology of spacetime. However, much of the power of the cobordism conjecture comes from a mathematical black box: the Adams spectral sequence. In this talk, I will give physical meaning to […]

Special Lectures on Machine Learning and Protein Folding

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

The CMSA hosted a series of three 90-minute lectures on the subject of machine learning for protein folding. Thursday Feb. 9, Thursday Feb. 16, & Thursday March 9, 2023, 3:30-5:00 pm ET Location: G10, CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge MA 02138 & via Zoom     Speaker: Nazim Bouatta, Harvard Medical School Abstract: AlphaFold2, a […]

Quasinormal modes and Ruelle resonances: mathematician’s perspective

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

https://youtu.be/FyJ6TieNQBc General Relativity Seminar Speaker: Maciej Zworski, UC Berkeley Title: Quasinormal modes and Ruelle resonances: mathematician's perspective Abstract: Quasinormal modes of gravitational waves and Ruelle resonances in hyperbolic classical dynamics share many general properties and can be considered "scattering resonances": they appear in expansions of correlations, as poles of Green functions and are associated to […]

From spin glasses to Boolean circuits lower bounds – Algorithmic barriers from the overlap gap property

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

Speaker: David Gamarnik (MIT) Title: From spin glasses to Boolean circuits lower bounds. Algorithmic barriers from the overlap gap property Abstract: Many decision and optimization problems over random structures exhibit an apparent gap between the existentially optimal values and algorithmically achievable values. Examples include the problem of finding a largest independent set in a random graph, the problem […]

Motivic Geometry of Two-Loop Feynman Integrals

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

Member Seminar Speaker: Chuck Doran Title: Motivic Geometry of Two-Loop Feynman Integrals Abstract: We study the geometry and Hodge theory of the cubic hypersurfaces attached to two-loop Feynman integrals for generic physical parameters. We show that the Hodge structure attached to planar two-loop Feynman graphs decomposes into a mixed Tate piece and a variation of Hodge structure from […]

Interacting Active Matter

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

Active Matter Seminar Speaker: Amin Doostmohammadi, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen Title: Interacting Active Matter Abstract: I will focus on the interaction between different active matter systems. In particular, I will describe recent experimental and modeling results that reveal how interaction forces between adhesive cells generate activity in the cell layer and lead to a […]

Neural Optimal Stopping Boundary

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

Speaker: Max Reppen (Boston University) Title: Neural Optimal Stopping Boundary Abstract:  A method based on deep artificial neural networks and empirical risk minimization is developed to calculate the boundary separating the stopping and continuation regions in optimal stopping. The algorithm parameterizes the stopping boundary as the graph of a function and introduces relaxed stopping rules based on fuzzy […]

AI and Theorem Proving

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

Member Seminar Speaker: Mike Douglas Title: AI and Theorem Proving Abstract: We survey interactive theorem proving and the Lean theorem prover, and the use of AI and large language models to improve this technology. We hope to start a discussion on projects we can do at the CMSA.

Swampland program, extra dimensions and supersymmetry breaking

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

Swampland Seminar Speaker: Ignatios Antoniadis (LPTHE Paris) Title: Swampland program, extra dimensions and supersymmetry breaking Abstract: I will argue on the possibility that the smallness of some physical parameters signal a universe corresponding to a large distance corner in the string landscape of vacua. Such parameters can be the scales of dark energy and supersymmetry breaking, leading to […]