Seminars and Colloquia Schedule

Monday, September 4, 2017 - 14:15 , Location: Skiles 006 , None , None , Organizer: Dan Margalit
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - 01:55 , Location: Skiles 005 , Shahaf Nitzan , Georgia Tech , Organizer: Shahaf Nitzan
The classical Balian-Low theorem states that if both a function and it's Fourier transform decay too fast then the Gabor system generated by this function (i.e. the system obtained from this function by taking integer translations and integer modulations) cannot be an orthonormal basis or a Riesz basis.Though it provides for an excellent `thumbs--rule' in time-frequency analysis, the Balian--Low theorem is not adaptable to many applications. This is due to the fact that in realistic situations information about a signal is given by a finite dimensional vector rather then by a function over the real line. In this work we obtain an analog of the Balian--Low theorem in the finite dimensional setting, as well as analogs to some of its extensions. Moreover, we will note that the classical Balian--Low theorem can be derived from these finite dimensional analogs.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - 12:10 , Location: Skiles 006 , Virginia Ahalt , DoD , Organizer: Timothy Duff
SPORT is a 12-week *PAID* summer internship offered by the National Security Agency (NSA) that provides 8 U.S. Citizen graduate students the opportunity to apply their technical skills to current, real-world operations research problems at the NSA.  SPORT looks for strong students in operations research, applied math, computer science, data science, industrial and systems engineering, and other related fields. Program Highlights: -- Paid internship (12 weeks, late May to mid-August 2018) -- Applications accepted September 1 - October 31, 2017 -- Opportunity to apply operations research, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and/or engineering skills -- Real NSA mission problems -- Paid annual and sick leave, housing available, most travel costs covered -- Flexible work schedule -- Opportunity to network with other Intelligence Agencies
Thursday, September 7, 2017 - 11:05 , Location: Skiles 006 , , Imperial College London , Organizer: Mayya Zhilova
I will present a survey of the main results about first and second order models of swarming where repulsion and attraction are modeled through pairwise potentials. We will mainly focus on the stability of the fascinating patterns that you get by random particle simulations, flocks and mills, and their qualitative behavior. Qualitative properties of local minimizers of the interaction energies are crucial in order to understand these complex behaviors. Compactly supported global minimizers determine the flock patterns whose existence is related to the classical H-stability in statistical mechanics and the classical obstacle problem for differential operators.
Thursday, September 7, 2017 - 13:30 , Location: Skiles 005 , Shijie Xie , School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech , Organizer: Xingxing Yu
Let $G$ be a graph containing 5 different vertices $a_0, a_1, a_2, b_1$ and $b_2$. We say that $(G,a_0,a_1,a_2,b_1,b_2)$ is feasible if $G$ contains disjoint connected subgraphs $G_1, G_2$, such that  $\{a_0, a_1, a_2\}\subseteq V(G_1)$ and $\{b_1, b_2\}\subseteq V(G_2)$. We give a characterization for $(G,a_0,a_1,a_2,b_1,b_2)$ to be feasible, answering a question of Robertson and Seymour. This is joint work with Changong Li, Robin Thomas, and Xingxing Yu.In this talk, we will discuss the operations we will use to reduce $(G,a_0,a_1,a_2,b_1,b_2)$ to $(G',a_0',a_1',a_2',b_1',b_2')$ with $|V(G)|+|E(G)|>|V(G')|+E(G')$, such that $(G,a_0,a_1,a_2,b_1,b_2)$ is feasible  iff $(G',a_0',a_1',a_2'b_1',b_2')$ is feasible.
Thursday, September 7, 2017 - 15:05 , Location: Skiles 006 , Michael Damron , Georgia Institute of Technology , , Organizer: Michael Damron
On the two-dimensional square lattice, assign i.i.d. nonnegative weights to the edges with common distribution F. For which F is there an infinite self-avoiding path with finite total weight? This question arises in first-passage percolation, the study of the random metric space Z^2 with the induced random graph metric coming from the above edge-weights. It has long been known that there is no such infinite path when F(0)<1/2 (there are only finite paths of zero-weight edges), and there is one when F(0)>1/2 (there is an infinite path of zero-weight edges). The critical case, F(0)=1/2, is considerably more difficult due to the presence of finite paths of zero-weight edges on all scales. I will discuss work with W.-K. Lam and X. Wang in which we give necessary and sufficient conditions on F for the existence of an infinite finite-weight path. The methods involve comparing the model to another one, invasion percolation, and showing that geodesics in first-passage percolation have the same first order travel time as optimal paths in an embedded invasion cluster.
Friday, September 8, 2017 - 15:00 , Location: Skiles 005 , Laura Eslava , Georgia Tech , Organizer: Lutz Warnke
Among the most studied tree growth processes there are recursive trees and linear preferential attachment trees. The study of these two models is motivated by the need of understanding the evolution of social networks. A key feature of social networks is the presence of vertices that serve as hubs, connecting large parts of the network. While such type of vertices had been widely studied for linear preferential attachment trees, analogous results for recursive trees were missing. In this talk, we will present joint laws for both the number and depth of vertices with near-maximal degrees and comment on the possibilities that our methods open for future research. This is joint work with Louigi Addario-Berry.