Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Duality exact sequences in contact homology

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, February 2, 2009 - 13:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
John EtnyreSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
I will discuss a "duality" among the linearized contact homology groups of a Legendrian submanifold in certain contact manifolds (in particular in Euclidean (2n+1)-space). This duality is expressed in a long exact sequence relating the linearized contact homology, linearized contact cohomology and the ordinary homology of the Legendrian submanifold. One can use this structure to ease difficult computations of linearized contact homology in high dimensions and further illuminate the proof of cases of the Arnold Conjecture for the double points of an exact Lagrangian in complex n- space.

Poorly Conditioned Minors of Random Matrices

Series
Combinatorics Seminar
Time
Friday, January 30, 2009 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Kevin P. CostelloSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Part of Spielman and Teng's smoothed analysis of the Simplex algorithm relied on showing that most minors of a typical random rectangular matrix are well conditioned (do not have any singular values too close to zero). Motivated by this, Vershynin asked the question as to whether it was typically true that ALL minors of a random rectangular matrix are well conditioned. Here I will explain why that the answer to this question is in fact no: Even an n by 2n matrix will typically have n by n minors which have singular values exponentially close to zero.

Introduction to the h-principle

Series
Geometry Topology Working Seminar
Time
Friday, January 30, 2009 - 15:00 for 2 hours
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
$h$-Principle consists of a powerful collection of tools developed by Gromov and others to solve underdetermined partial differential equations or relations which arise in differential geometry and topology. In these talks I will describe the Holonomic approximation theorem of Eliashberg-Mishachev, and discuss some of its applications including the sphere eversion theorem of Smale. Further I will discuss the method of convex integration and its application to proving the $C^1$ isometric embedding theorem of Nash. (Please note this course runs from 3-5.)

Introduction to the h-principle

Series
Other Talks
Time
Friday, January 30, 2009 - 15:00 for 2 hours
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Mohammad GhomiSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech

h-Principle consists of a powerful collection of tools developed by Gromov and others to solve underdetermined partial differential equations or relations which arise in differential geometry and topology. In these talks I will describe the Holonomic approximation theorem of Eliashberg-Mishachev, and discuss some of its applications including the sphere eversion theorem of Smale. Further I will discuss the method of convex integration and its application to proving the C^1 isometric embedding theorem of Nash.

Simple Proof of the Law of Iterated Logarithm in Probability

Series
SIAM Student Seminar
Time
Friday, January 30, 2009 - 12:30 for 2 hours
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Jinyong MaSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
I plan to give a simple proof of the law of iterated logarithm in probability, which is a famous conclusion relative to strong law of large number, and in the proof I will cover the definition of some important notations in probability such as Moment generating function and large deviations, the proof is basically from Billingsley's book and I made some.

Random trees and SPDE approximation

Series
Stochastics Seminar
Time
Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Yuri BakhtinSchool of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
This work began in collaboration with C.Heitsch. I will briefly discuss the biological motivation. Then I will introduce Gibbs random trees and study their asymptotics as the tree size grows to infinity. One of the results is a "thermodynamic limit" allowing to introduce a limiting infinite random tree which exhibits a few curious properties. Under appropriate scaling one can obtain a diffusion limit for the process of generation sizes of the infinite tree. It also turns out that one can approach the study the details of the geometry of the tree by tracing progenies of subpopulations. Under the same scaling the limiting continuum random tree can be described as a solution of an SPDE w.r.t. a Brownian sheet.

Corona Theorems for Multiplier Algebras on the Unit Ball in C^n

Series
Job Candidate Talk
Time
Thursday, January 29, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Brett WickUniversity of South Carolina
Carleson's Corona Theorem from the 1960's has served as a major motivation for many results in complex function theory, operator theory and harmonic analysis. In its simplest form, the result states that for two bounded analytic functions, g_1 and g_2, on the unit disc with no common zeros, it is possible to find two other bounded analytic functions, f_1 and f_2, such that f_1g_1+f_2g_2=1. Moreover, the functions f_1 and f_2 can be chosen with some norm control. In this talk we will discuss an exciting new generalization of this result to certain function spaces on the unit ball in several complex variables. In particular, we will highlight the Corona Theorem for the Drury-Arveson space and its applications in multi-variable operator theory.

Counterexamples to the Uniform Shortest Path Routing Conjecture for Vertex-Transitive Graphs

Series
ACO Student Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 13:30 for 2 hours
Location
ISyE Executive Classroom
Speaker
Sangho ShimISyE, Georgia Tech
In this article, we disprove the uniform shortest path routing conjecture for vertex-transitive graphs by constructing an infinite family of counterexamples.

Shape Optimization - an introduction

Series
Research Horizons Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 12:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Antoine HenrotUniversity of Nancy, France
In this talk, we give an insight into the mathematical topic of shape optimization. First, we give several examples of problems, some of them are purely academic and some have an industrial origin. Then, we look at the different mathematical questions arising in shape optimization. To prove the existence of a solution, we need some topology on the set of domains, together with good compactness and continuity properties. Studying the regularity and the geometric properties of a minimizer requires tools from classical analysis, like symmetrization. To be able to define the optimality conditions, we introduce the notion of derivative with respect to the domain. At last, we give some ideas of the different numerical methods used to compute a possible solution.

Ecological feedbacks in the evolution of resistance and tolerance to infectious disease

Series
Mathematical Biology Seminar
Time
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Mike BootsUniversity of Sheffield