Seminars and Colloquia Schedule

An A-infinity category from instantons

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, October 24, 2022 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Sherry GongTexas A&M

Joint Topology Seminar @ GaTech

Given n points on a disk, we will describe how to build an A-infinity category based on the instanton Floer complex of links, and explain why it is finitely generated. This is based on work in progress with Ko Honda.

Diagrams for contractible spaces of 4-manifolds

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, October 24, 2022 - 16:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
David GayUniversity of Georgia

Joint Topology Seminar @ GaTech

There exist many different diagrammatic descriptions of 4-manifolds, with the usual claim that "such and such a diagram uniquely determines a smooth 4-manifold up to diffeomorphism". This raises higher order questions: Up to what diffeomorphism? If the same diagram is used to produce two different 4-manifolds, is there a diffeomorphism between them uniquely determined up to isotopy? Are such isotopies uniquely determined up to isotopies of isotopies? Such questions become important if one hopes to use "diagrams" to study spaces of diffeomorphisms between manifolds. One way to achieve these higher order versions of uniqueness is to ask that a diagram uniquely determine a contractible space of 4-manifolds (i.e. a 4-manifold bundle over a contractible space). I will explain why some standard types of diagrams do not do this and give at least one type of diagram that does do this.

Sparse Quadratic Optimization via Polynomial Roots

Series
SIAM Student Seminar
Time
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Kevin ShuSchool of Mathematics

We'll talk about problems of optimizing a quadratic function subject to quadratic constraints, in addition to a sparsity constraint that requires that solutions have only a few nonzero entries. Such problems include sparse versions of linear regression and principal components analysis. We'll see that this problem can be formulated as a convex conical optimization problem over a sparse version of the positive semidefinite cone, and then see how we can approximate such problems using ideas arising from the study of hyperbolic polynomials. We'll also describe a fast algorithm for such problems, which performs well in practical situations.

Explicit formula of multi-solitary waves of the Benjamin–Ono equation

Series
PDE Seminar
Time
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Ruoci SunGeorgia Tech

Every multi-soliton manifold of the Benjamin–Ono equation on the line is invariant under the Benjamin–Ono flow. Its generalized action–angle coordinates allow to solve this equation by quadrature and we have the explicit expression of every multi-solitary wave.

Dyadic Matroids with Spanning Cliques

Series
Graph Theory Seminar
Time
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 - 15:45 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Kevin GraceVanderbilt University

The Matroid Minors Project of Geelen, Gerards, and Whittle describes the structure of minor-closed classes of matroids representable by a matrix over a fixed finite field. To use these results to study specific classes, it is important to study the matroids in the class containing spanning cliques. A spanning clique of a matroid M is a complete-graphic restriction of M with the same rank as M.

 

In this talk, we will describe the structure of dyadic matroids with spanning cliques. The dyadic matroids are those matroids that can be represented by a real matrix each of whose nonzero subdeterminants is a power of 2, up to a sign. A subclass of the dyadic matroids is the signed-graphic matroids. In the class of signed-graphic matroids, the entries of the matrix are determined by a signed graph. Our result is that dyadic matroids with spanning cliques are signed-graphic matroids and a few exceptional cases.

 

The main results in this talk will come from joint work with Ben Clark, James Oxley, and Stefan van Zwam. This talk will include a brief introduction to matroids.

Normalizable frames

Series
Analysis Seminar
Time
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Pu-Ting YuGeorgia Tech

Let $H$ be a separable Hilbert space and let $\{x_n\}$ be a Bessel sequence or a frame for $H$ which does not contain any zero elements. We say that $\{x_n\}$ is a normalizable Bessel sequence or normalizable frame if the normalized sequence $\{x_n/||x_n||\}$ remains a Bessel sequence or frame. In this talk, we will present characterizations of normalizable and non-normalizable frames . In particular, we prove that normalizable frames can only have two formulations.  Perturbation theorems tailored for normalizable frames will be also presented. Finally, we will talk about some open questions related to the normalizable frames.

The cohomological dimension of the terms of the Johnson filtration

Series
Geometry Topology Student Seminar
Time
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Dan MinahanGeorgia Tech

Abstract: How big is a group?  One possible notion of the size of the group is the cohomological dimension, which is the largest n for which a group G can have non—trivial cohomology in degree n, possibly with twisted coefficients.  Following the work of Bestvina, Bux and Margalit, we compute the cohomological dimension of the terms Johnson filtration of a closed surface.  No background is required for this talk.

Linear and nonlinear stability of shear flows and vortices

Series
Colloquia
Time
Thursday, October 27, 2022 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Online: Zoom link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/96410391996?pwd=VkQvcUdoREtsbUJPNVFTbzdKaC9TQT09
Speaker
Alexandru IonescuPrinceton University

I will talk about some recent work on the stability problem of shear flows and vortices as solutions of the Euler equations in 2D.  Our results include nonlinear stability theorems for monotonic shear  flows and point vortices, as well as linear stability theorems for more general flows. This is joint work with Hao Jia.

Ballistic Annihilation

Series
Stochastics Seminar
Time
Thursday, October 27, 2022 - 15:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Matthew JungeBaruch College, CUNY

In the late 20th century, statistical physicists introduced a chemical reaction model called ballistic annihilation. In it, particles are placed randomly throughout the real line and then proceed to move at independently sampled velocities. Collisions result in mutual annihilation. Many results were inferred by physicists, but it wasn’t until recently that mathematicians joined in. I will describe my trajectory through this model. Expect tantalizing open questions.

Persistence of periodic orbits in functional perturbations of an ODE

Series
Math Physics Seminar
Time
Thursday, October 27, 2022 - 16:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles Room 005
Speaker
Joan GimenoUniversitat de Barcelona & Georgia Institute of Technology

With very minor assumptions, I show that periodic orbits in
an ODE can persist under (singular) perturbations of including a delay
term.  These perturbations change the phase space from finite to
infinite dimensions. The results apply to electrodynamics and give new
approaches to handle state-dependent, small, nested, and distributed
delays.

I will discuss and explain some motivations, the new methods, sketches
of the proofs, and possible applications. I will end the talk giving
some ideas of work in progress and possible future works.

An Introductory Proof of the Compactness Theorem and Some Applications

Series
Algebra Student Seminar
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 10:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Griffin EdwardsGeorgia Institute Of Technology

We will introduce the foundations of model theory, by defining languages, models, and theories. Then we will look at a couple proofs of the compactness theorem, state Gödel's completeness theorem, and prove that any planar graph is four colorable. Expect a lot of examples, and I hope everyone comes away understanding the foundations of this wonderful theory.

Computer assisted proofs for transverse collision and near collision orbits in the restricted three body problem

Series
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Online
Speaker
Maciej CapinskiAGH University of Science and Technology

https://gatech.zoom.us/j/95197085752?pwd=WmtJUVdvM1l6aUJBbHNJWTVKcVdmdz09

In this talk we will discuss a shooting method designed for solving two point boundary value problems in a setting where a system has integrals of motion. We will show how it can be applied to obtain certain families of orbits in the circular restricted three body problem. These include transverse ejection/collisions from one primary body to the other, families of periodic orbits, orbits passing through collision, and orbits connecting fixed points to ejections or collisions.

This is joint work with Shane Kepley and Jason Mireles James.

A brief introduction to the circle method and sparse domination

Series
Graduate Student Colloquium
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 12:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Christina GiannitsiGeorgia Tech

 In this talk we will go over the Hardly-Littlewood circle method, and the major and minor arc decomposition. We shall then see a toy-example of the High-Low decomposition, and proceed with defining sparse families and sparse domination. We will conclude by explaining why sparse domination is of interest to us  when studying $L^p$ bounds. This talk aims to be accessible to people without a strong background in the area. Some basic concepts of real and harmonic analysis will be useful (e.g. $L^p$ spaces, Fourier transform,  Holder inequality, the Hardy-Littlewood Maximal function, etc)

Coloring Graphs with Forbidden Almost Bipartite Subgraphs

Series
ACO Student Seminar
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 13:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
James AndersonGeorgia Tech Math

For graphs with maximum degree $\Delta$, a greedy algorithm shows $\chi(G) \leq \Delta + 1$. Brooks improved this to $\chi(G) \leq \Delta$ when $G$ has no cliques of size $\Delta + 1$, provided $\Delta \geq 3$. If is conjectured that if one forbids other graphs, the bound can be pushed further: for instance, Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov conjecture that, for any graph $F$, there is a constant $c(F) > 0$ such that $\chi(G) \leq (c(F) + o(1)) \Delta / \log\Delta$ for all $F$-free graphs $G$ of maximum degree $\Delta$. The only graphs $F$ for which this conjecture has been verified so far---by Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov themselves---are the so-called almost bipartite graphs, i.e., graphs that can be made bipartite by removing at most one vertex. Equivalently, a graph is almost bipartite if it is a subgraph of the complete tripartite graph $K_{1,t,t}$ for some $t \in \N$. The best heretofore known upper bound on $c(F)$ for almost bipartite $F$ is due to Davies, Kang, Pirot, and Sereni, who showed that $c(K_{1,t,t}) \leq t$. We prove that in fact $c(F) \leq 4$ for any almost bipartite graph $F$, thus making the bound independent of $F$ in all the known cases of the conjecture. We also establish a more general version of this result in the setting of DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring), which we give a gentle introduction to. Finally, we consider consequences of this result in the context of sublinear algorithms.

 

This is joint work with Anton Bernshteyn and Abhishek Dhawan.

Smooth structures on open 4-manifolds V

Series
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 14:00 for 1.5 hours (actually 80 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
John EtnyreGeorgia Tech

One of the most interesting and surprising features of manifold topology is the existence of topological 4-manifold that admit infinitely many smooth structures. In these talks I will discuss what is known about these “exotic” smooth structures on open manifolds, starting with R^4 and then moving on to other open 4-manifolds. We will also go over various constructions and open questions about these manifolds.  

Identifiability and inference of phylogenetic birth-death models

Series
Mathematical Biology Seminar
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
ONLINE
Speaker
Jonathan TerhorstUniversity of Michigan - Department of Statistics

The phylogenetic birth-death process is a probabilistic model of evolution that
is widely used to analyze genetic data. In a striking result, Louca & Pennell
(Nature, 2020) recently showed that this model is statistically unidentifiable,
meaning that an arbitrary number of different evolutionary hypotheses are
consistent with any given data set. This grave finding has called into question
the conclusions of a large number of evolutionary studies which relied on this
model.

In this talk, I will give an introduction to the phylogenetic birth-death
process, and explain Louca and Pennell's unidentifiability result. Then, I will
describe recent positive results that we have obtained, which establish that, by
restricting the evolutionary hypothesis space in certain biologically plausible
ways, statistical identifiability is restored. Finally, I will discuss some
complementary hardness-of-estimation results which show that, even in identifiable
model classes, obtaining reliable inferences from finite amounts of data may be
extremely challenging.

No background in this area is assumed, and the talk will be accessible to a
mathematically mature audience. This is joint work with Brandon Legried.

Zoom link:  https://gatech.zoom.us/j/99936668317

The Potts model on expander graphs

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, October 28, 2022 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 202
Speaker
Corrine YapRutgers University

The Potts model is a distribution on q-colorings of a graph, used to represent spin configurations of a system of particles. Intuitively we expect most configurations to be "solid-like" at low temperatures and "gas-like" at high temperatures. We prove a precise version of this statement for d-regular expander graphs. We also consider the question of whether or not there are efficient algorithms for approximate counting and sampling from the model, and show that such algorithms exist at almost all temperatures. In this talk, I will introduce the different tools we use in our proofs, which come from both statistical physics (polymer models, cluster expansion) and combinatorics (a new container-like result, Karger's randomized min-cut algorithm). This is joint work with Charlie Carlson, Ewan Davies, Nicolas Fraiman, Alexandra Kolla, and Aditya Potukuchi.