Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Symmetric knots and the equivariant 4-ball genus

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, February 1, 2021 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
ONLINE
Speaker
Ahmad Issa – University of British Columbia –

Given a knot K in the 3-sphere, the 4-genus of K is the minimal genus of an orientable surface embedded in the 4-ball with boundary K. If the knot K has a symmetry (e.g. K is periodic or strongly invertible), one can define the equivariant 4-genus by only minimising the genus over those surfaces in the 4-ball which respect the symmetry of the knot. I'll discuss some work with Keegan Boyle trying to understanding the equivariant 4-genus.

The differential equation method in Banach spaces and the n-queens problem

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, January 29, 2021 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
https://bluejeans.com/751242993/PASSWORD (To receive the password, please email Lutz Warnke
Speaker
Michael Simkin – Harvard CMSA

The differential equation method is a powerful tool used to study the evolution of random combinatorial processes. By showing that the process is likely to follow the trajectory of an ODE, one can study the deterministic ODE rather than the random process directly. We extend this method to ODEs in infinite-dimensional Banach spaces.
We apply this tool to the classical n-queens problem: Let Q(n) be the number of placements of n non-attacking chess queens on an n x n board. Consider the following random process: Begin with an empty board. For as long as possible choose, uniformly at random, a space with no queens in its row, column, or either diagonal, and place on it a queen. We associate the process with an abstract ODE. By analyzing the ODE we conclude that the process almost succeeds in placing n queens on the board. Furthermore, we can obtain a complete n-queens placement by making only a few changes to the board. By counting the number of choices available at each step we conclude that Q(n) \geq (n/C)^n, for a constant C>0 associated with the ODE. This is optimal up to the value of C.

Based on joint work with Zur Luria.

Representations of Sl(2,C) in combinatorics

Series
Student Algebraic Geometry Seminar
Time
Friday, January 29, 2021 - 09:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Microsoft Teams
Speaker
Trevor Gunn – Georgia Tech

There are two purposes of this talk: 1. to give an example of representation theory in algebraic combinatorics and 2. to explain some of the early work on unimodal/symmetric sequences in combinatorics related to recent work on Hodge theory in combinatorics. We will investigate the structure of graded vector spaces $\bigoplus V_j$ with two "shifting" operators $V_j \to V_{j+1}$ and $V_j → V_{j-1}$. We will see that this leads to a very rich theory of unimodal and symmetric sequences with several interesting connections (e.g. the Edge-Reconstruction Conjecture and Hard Lefschetz). The majority of this talk should be accessible to anyone with a solid knowledge of linear algebra.

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3a3a9d7f9d1fca4f5b991b4029b09c69a1%40thread.tacv2/1611606555671

Serre Spectral Sequence

Series
Geometry Topology Student Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 14:00 for
Location
ONLINE
Speaker
Hugo Zhou

I will introduce Serre spectral sequences, then compute some examples. The talk will be in most part following Allen Hatcher's notes on spectral sequences.

A Polynomial Roth Theorem for Corners in the Finite Field Setting

Series
Analysis Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/71579248210?pwd=d2VPck1CbjltZStURWRWUUgwTFVLZz09
Speaker
Michael Lacey – Georgia Tech

An initial result of Bourgain and Chang has lead to a number of striking advances in the understanding of polynomial extensions of Roth's Theorem.
The most striking of these is the result of Peluse and Prendiville which show that sets in [1 ,..., N] with density greater than (\log N)^{-c} contain polynomial progressions of length k (where c=c(k)).  There is as of yet no corresponding result for corners, the two dimensional setting for Roth's Theorem, where one would seek progressions of the form(x,y), (x+t^2, y), (x,y+t^3) in  [1 ,..., N]^2, for example.  

Recently, the corners version of the result of Bourgain and Chang has been established, showing an effective bound for a three term polynomial Roth theorem in the finite field setting.  We will survey this area. Joint work with Rui Han and Fan Yang.

The link for the seminar is the following

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/71579248210?pwd=d2VPck1CbjltZStURWRWUUgwTFVLZz09

Prague dimension of random graphs

Series
Graph Theory Seminar
Time
Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - 15:45 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/77238664391. For password, please email Anton Bernshteyn (bahtoh ~at~ gatech.edu)
Speaker
He Guo – Georgia Institute of Technology –

The Prague dimension of graphs was introduced by Nešetřil, Pultr and Rödl in the 1970s. Proving a conjecture of Füredi and Kantor, we show that the Prague dimension of the binomial random graph is typically of order $n/\log n$ for constant edge-probabilities. The main new proof ingredient is a Pippenger–Spencer type edge-coloring result for random hypergraphs with large uniformities, i.e., edges of size $O(\log n)$. Based on joint work with Kalen Patton and Lutz Warnke.

The asymptotic dimension of big mapping class groups

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, January 25, 2021 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
ONLINE
Speaker
Yvon Verberne – Georgia Institute of Technology –

Please Note: Dan Margalit is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. https://zoom.us/j/94410378648?pwd=TVV6UDd0SnU3SnAveHA1NWxYcmlTdz09 Meeting ID: 944 1037 8648 Passcode: gojackets

In 2010, Bestvina-Bromberg-Fujiwara proved that the mapping class group of a finite type surface has finite asymptotic dimension. In contrast, we will show the mapping class group of an infinite-type surface has infinite asymptotic dimension if it contains an essential shift. This work is joint with Curtis Grant and Kasra Rafi.

Monte Carlo methods for the Hermitian eigenvaue problem

Series
Applied and Computational Mathematics Seminar
Time
Monday, January 25, 2021 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
ONLINE https://bluejeans.com/884917410
Speaker
Robert Webber – Courant Institute

In quantum mechanics and the analysis of Markov processes, Monte Carlo methods are needed to identify low-lying eigenfunctions of dynamical generators. The standard Monte Carlo approaches for identifying eigenfunctions, however, can be inaccurate or slow to converge. What limits the efficiency of the currently available spectral estimation methods and what is needed to build more efficient methods for the future? Through numerical analysis and computational examples, we begin to answer these questions. We present the first-ever convergence proof and error bounds for the variational approach to conformational dynamics (VAC), the dominant method for estimating eigenfunctions used in biochemistry. Additionally, we analyze and optimize variational Monte Carlo (VMC), which combines Monte Carlo with neural networks to accurately identify low-lying eigenstates of quantum systems.

Prime gaps, probabilistic models and the Hardy-Littlewood conjectures

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, January 22, 2021 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
https://bluejeans.com/751242993/PASSWORD (To receive the password, please email Lutz Warnke)
Speaker
Kevin Ford – The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Motivated by a new probabilistic interpretation of the Hardy-Littlewood k-tuples conjectures, we introduce a new probabilistic model of the primes and make a new conjecture about the largest gaps between the primes below x.  Our bound depends on a property of the interval sieve which is not well understood.  We also show that any sequence of integers which satisfies a sufficiently uniform version of the Hardy-Littlewood conjectures must have large gaps of a specific size.  This work is joint with Bill Banks and Terry Tao.

Combinatorial aspects of RNA design

Series
Mathematical Biology Seminar
Time
Friday, January 22, 2021 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
ONLINE
Speaker
Yann Ponty – Ecole Polytechnique France –

Please Note: BlueJeans Link: https://bluejeans.com/348270750

RiboNucleic Acids (RNAs) are ubiquitous, versatile, and overall fascinating, biomolecules which play central roles in modern molecular biology. They also represent a largely untapped potential for biotechnology and health, substantiated by recent disruptive developments (mRNA vaccines, RNA silencing therapies, guide-RNAs of CRISPR-Cas9 systems...). To address those challenges, one must effectively  perform RNA design, generally defined as the determination of an RNA sequence achieving a predefined biological function.

I will focus in this talk on algorithmic results and enumerative properties stemming from the inverse folding, the problem of designing a sequence of nucleotides that fold preferentially and uniquely (with respect to base-pair maximization) into a target secondary structure. Despite the NP-hardness of the problem (+ absence of a Fixed Parameter-Tractable algorithm) we showed that it can be solved in polynomial time for restricted families of structures. Such families are dense in the space of designable 2D structures, so that any structure that admits a solution for the inverse folding can be efficiently designed in an approximated sense.

We show that any 2D structure avoiding two forbidden motifs can be modified into a designable structure  by adding at most one extra base-pair per helix. Moreover, both the modification and the design of a sequence for the modified structure can be computed in linear time. Finally, if time allows, I will discuss combinatorial consequences of the existence of undesignable motifs. In particular, it implies an exponentially decreasing density of designable structures amongst secondary structures. Those results extend to virtually any design objectives and energy models.

This is joint work with Cédric Chauve, Jozef Hales, Jan Manuch, Ladislav Stacho (SFU, Canada), Alice Héliou, Mireille Régnier, and Hua-Ting Yao (Ecole Polytechnique, France).

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