Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Syzygies and parking functions from hypergraph polytopes

Series
Algebra Seminar
Time
Monday, November 18, 2024 - 11:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Anton DochtermannTexas State University

Please Note: There will be a pre-seminar at 10:55 am in Skiles 005.

For a connected graph G, the set of G-parking functions are integer sequences counted by spanning trees that arise in the theory of chip-firing on G.  They can also be defined as the standard monomials of a `G-parking function ideal', whose homological properties have interesting combinatorial interpretations. We extend these constructions to the setting of hypergraphs, where edges can have multiple vertices. We study algebraic and combinatorial aspects of parking functions in this context, employing generalized notions of acyclic orientations and spanning trees. Minimal cellular resolutions of the underlying ideals can be understood in terms of certain generalized permutohedra. This is joint work with Ayah Almousa and Ben Smith, as well as an REU project with Timothy Blanton, Isabelle Hong, Suho Oh, and Zhan Zhan.

New results on the Erdős-Rogers function

Series
Time
Friday, November 15, 2024 - 15:15 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Dhruv MubayiUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

Given integers $1 < s < t$, what is the maximum size of a $K_s$-free subgraph that every $n$ vertex $K_t$-free graph is guaranteed to contain? This problem was posed by Hajnal, Erdős and Rogers in the 1960s as a way to generalize classical graph Ramsey numbers (which corresponds to the case $s=2$). We  prove almost optimal results in the case $t=s+1$ using recent constructions in Ramsey theory. We also consider the problem where we replace $K_s$ and $K_t$ by arbitrary graphs $H$ and $G$ and discover several interesting new phenomena.  This is joint work with Jacques Verstraete.

Dependent random choice, statistical physics, and the local rank of tensors

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, November 15, 2024 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Daniel ZhuPrinceton

We present a lemma, inspired by dependent random choice and sampling procedures from statistical physics, for finding dense structure in arbitrary $d$-partite $d$-uniform hypergraphs. We will then discuss how this lemma leads to the concept of local rank, a notion of tensor rank which is instrumental in proving a "structure vs. randomness" result for tensors (and by extension, polynomials): namely, a relation between the partition and analytic ranks of tensors over finite fields. This is joint work with Guy Moshkovitz.

A criterion for crystallization in hard-core lattice particle systems

Series
Math Physics Seminar
Time
Friday, November 15, 2024 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Clough 280
Speaker
Ian JauslinRutgers University

As is well known, many materials freeze at low temperatures. Microscopically,
  this means that their molecules form a phase where there is long range order
  in their positions. Despite their ubiquity, proving that these freezing
  transitions occur in realistic microscopic models has been a significant
  challenge, and it remains an open problem in continuum models at positive
  temperatures. In this talk, I will focus on lattice particle models, in which
  the positions of particles are discrete, and discuss a general criterion
  under which crystallization can be proved to occur. The class of models that
  the criterion applies to are those in which there is *no sliding*, that is,
  particles are largely locked in place when the density is large. The tool
  used in the proof is Pirogov-Sinai theory and cluster expansions. I will
  present the criterion in its general formulation, and discuss some concrete
  examples. This is joint work with Qidong He and Joel L. Lebowitz.

Limiting Expectations: The Central Limit Phenomenon

Series
Stochastics Seminar
Time
Thursday, November 14, 2024 - 15:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
David Grzybowski

The normal distribution appears in a wide and disparate set of circumstances, and this ubiquity is explained by the central limit phenomenon. This talk will explore several forms of the central limit theorem, as well as different methods of proof. Highlights include a new method of moments proof for entries on a hypersphere sphere and results for traces of large random matrices utilizing the Malliavin-Stein method.

Additive energies of subsets of discrete cubes

Series
Number Theory
Time
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 - 15:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Fernando Xuancheng ShaoUniversity of Kentucky

 For a positive integer , define  to be the smallest number such that the additive energy of any subset and any  is at most . In this talk, I will survey recent results on bounds for , explore the connections with (variants of) the Hausdorff-Young inequality in analysis and with the Balog-Szemeredi-Gowers theorem in additive combinatorics, and then discuss new results on the asymptotic behavior of  as .

Damped Proximal Augmented Lagrangian Method for weakly-Convex Problems with Convex Constraints

Series
Applied and Computational Mathematics Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
2443 Classroom Klaus and https://gatech.zoom.us/j/94954654170
Speaker
Yangyang XuRensselaer Polytechnic Institute

In this talk, I will present a damped proximal augmented Lagrangian method (DPALM) for solving problems with a weakly-convex objective and convex linear/nonlinear constraints. Instead of taking a full stepsize, DPALM adopts a damped dual stepsize. DPALM can produce a (near) eps-KKT point within eps^{-2} outer iterations if each DPALM subproblem is solved to a proper accuracy. In addition, I will show overall iteration complexity of DPALM when the objective is either a regularized smooth function or in a regularized compositional form. For the former case, DPALM achieves the complexity of eps^{-2.5} to produce an eps-KKT point by applying an accelerated proximal gradient (APG) method to each DPALM subproblem. For the latter case, the complexity of DPALM is eps^{-3} to produce a near eps-KKT point by using an APG to solve a Moreau-envelope smoothed version of each subproblem. Our outer iteration complexity and the overall complexity either generalize existing best ones from unconstrained or linear-constrained problems to convex-constrained ones, or improve over the best-known results on solving the same-structured problems. Furthermore, numerical experiments on linearly/quadratically constrained non-convex quadratic programs and linear-constrained robust nonlinear least squares are conducted to demonstrate the empirical efficiency of the proposed DPALM over several state-of-the art methods.

Indigenous bundles and uniformization

Series
Geometry Topology Student Seminar
Time
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Akash NarayananGeorgia Tech

The uniformization theorem states that every Riemann surface is a quotient of some subset of the complex projective line by a group of Mobius transformations. However, a number of closely related questions regarding the structure of uniformization maps remain open. For example, it is unclear how one might associate a uniformizing map to a given Riemann surface. In this talk we will discuss an approach to this question due to Gunning by attaching a projective line bundle to a Riemann surface and studying its analytic properties.

A Hereditary Generalization of the Nordhaus-Gaddum Graphs (Rebecca Whitman)

Series
Graph Theory Seminar
Time
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 - 15:30 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 005
Speaker
Rebecca WhitmanUniversity of California Berkeley

 Nordhaus and Gaddum proved in 1956 that the sum of the chromatic number  of a graph G and its complement is at most |G|+1.  The Nordhaus-Gaddum graphs are the class of graphs satisfying this inequality with equality, and are well-understood. In this paper we consider a hereditary generalization: graphs G for which all induced subgraphs H of G satisfy that the sum of the chromatic numbers of H and its complement are at least |H|. We characterize the forbidden induced subgraphs of this class and find its intersection with a number of common classes, including line graphs. We also discuss chi-boundedness and algorithmic results.

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