The Riemann-Roch theorem for graphs and applications

Series
ACO Student Seminar
Time
Friday, February 22, 2013 - 1:05pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Matt Baker – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech – http://people.math.gatech.edu/~mbaker/
Organizer
Chun-hung Liu
We will begin by formulating the Riemann-Roch theorem for graphs, due to the speaker and Norine. We will then describe some refinements and applications. Refinements include a Riemann-Roch theorem for tropical curves, proved by Gathmann-Kerber and Mikhalkin-Zharkov, and a Riemann-Roch theorem for metrized complexes of curves, proved by Amini and the speaker. Applications include a new proof by Cools-Draisma-Payne-Robeva of the Brill-Noether theorem in algebraic geometry, a generalization by Amini and the speaker of the Eisenbud-Harris theory of limit linear series, and a new Chabauty-Coleman style bound for the number of rational points on an algebraic curve over the rationals, proved recently by Katz and Zureick-Brown.