2011-2012 Seminars and Colloquia
department of mathematics
BC-MIT Number Theory Seminar
Organizers: Sol Friedberg and Ben Howard at BC, and Ben Brubaker and Bjorn Poonen at MIT.
| September 20, 2011 at BC - 9 Lake Street, Room 035 Directions |
3:00–4:00 p.m. Marie-France Vigneras (Jussieu) Title: From $p$-adic Galois representations to $G$-equivariant sheaves on the flag variety $G/P$ 4:30–5:30 p.m. Kristin Lauter (Microsoft Research) Title: Arithmetic Intersection Theory on the Siegel Moduli Space |
| October 18, 2011 at MIT, Room 2-132 |
3:00–4:00 p.m. Fernando Rodriguez Villegas (University of Texas at Austin) Title: Hypergeometric motives: the case of Artin L-functions 4:00–4:30 p.m. Xinyi Yuan (Princeton University) Title: On the height of the Gross-Schoen cycle |
| November 15, 2011 at BC, McGuinn 521 |
Brian Conrey (AIM) Title: A reciprocity formula for a cotangent sum Steven D. Miller (Rutgers) Title: Fourier Coefficients of Automorphic Forms on Exceptional Groups |
| February 14, 2012 at MIT, Room 4-237 |
Dihua Jiang (Minnesota) Title: Constructions of Cuspidal Automorphic Forms for Classical Groups Wenzhi Luo (Ohio State) Title: Asymptotic Variance for the Linnik Distribution |
| March 20, 2012 at BC, McGuinn 521 |
Kannan Soundararajan (Stanford) Samit Dasgupta (UC Santa Cruz) |
| April 3, 2012 at MIT, Room 4-237 |
Wen-Ching Winnie Li (Penn State) Alex Kontorovich (Yale) |
BC Distinguished Lecturer in Mathematics series
BC Math Society/Mathematics Department Undergraduate Lectures
BC Geometry/Topology Seminar
Schedule for the BC Geometry/Topology Seminar
BC Number Theory/Algebraic Geometry Seminar
Schedule for the BC Number Theory/Algebraic Geometry Seminar
Organizers: Avner Ash, Dubi Kelmer, Rob Gross
BC Colloquium Series
October 13 2:30–3:30 p.m. Carney 309 |
Speaker: Izzet Coskun, University of Illinois, Chicago Title: Pictures and homogeneous spaces Abstract: Many important problems in representation theory have analogues in geometry. For example, decomposing tensor products of representations of GL(n) into irreducible representations is very closely tied to the geometry of the Grassmannian. Similarly, studying the restriction of a representation of GL(n) to subgroups such as SO(n) or SP(n) has geometric analogues in terms of the geometry of flag varieties. In this talk, I will show you how drawing a few pictures can make studying such lofty problems a lot of fun. I will specifically concentrate on Littlewood-Richardson rules and geometric branching rules. I intend to make the talk accessible to anyone who is willing to be seduced by pictures. |
October 27 4:00–5:00 p.m. Fulton 230 |
Speaker: Richard Askey, University of Wisconsin Title: The binomial theorem, beta and gamma functions, and some extensions of each. Abstract: It is well known that the number of permutations of the set 1,2,...,n is n!. An extension of this where one counts inversions was posed as a problem by M. Stern in 1839. These will be the starting place to build up the binomial theorem, the extension of n! which we now write as the gamma function, the beta integral of John Wallis, Euler's integral representation of the gamma function as an integral, and the connection between these three things. This connection will be looked at in two different settings, the classical one which most of you know reasonable well, and what will be called q-extensions of these classical results into a world which has finally started to come into its own. |
November 9, 4.00-5.00 p.m. Carney 309 |
Speaker: András Stipsicz (Rényi Institute of Mathematics) Title: 3-dimensional contact topology Abstract: After reviewing results about the existence of tight contact structures on closed 3-manifolds, we show how to use Heegaard Floer theory (in particular, the contact Ozsvath-Szabo invariant) to verify tightness of certain contact structures on 3-maniolds given by surgery along specific knots in S^3 |
November 17, 2:30–3:30 p.m Carney 309 |
Speaker: Joseph Harris, (Harvard University) Title: Title: The Interpolation Problem Abstract: See here. |
December 7, 4:15–5:15 p.m. Carney 309 |
Speaker: Ian Agol, (University of California, Berkeley) Title: Virtual properties of 3-manifolds Abstract: In his article "3-Dimensional manifolds, Kleinian groups, and hyperbolic geometry", William Thurston posed 24 problems related to the topology and geometry of Kleinian groups and hyperbolic 3-manifolds. We'll discuss four of the remaining open problems from this list, 15-18, having to do principally with finite-sheeted covers of hyperbolic 3-manifolds. We'll discuss how recent work of Kahn-Markovic and Wise implies that these problems are essentially equivalent, and the prospects for answering these questions combining their results. |
Boston Area Links
The Mathematical Gazette is published weekly by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Mathematical Sciences Department. It provides a list of mathematical seminars and colloquia in the Massachusetts area.