Limiting distributions of Betti numbers

Series
Algebra Seminar
Time
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 3:00pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Fernando Rodriguez-Villegas – University of Texas Austin
Organizer
Matt Baker
We will discuss several instances of sequences of complex manifolds X_n whose Betti numbers b_i(X_n) converge, when properly scaled, to a limiting distribution. The varieties considered have Betti numbers which are described in a combinatorial way making their study possible. Interesting examples include varieties X for which b_i(X) is the i-th coefficient of the reliability polynomial of an associated graph.