Seminars and Colloquia by Series

The dynamical shape of a complex polynomial

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, October 8, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Laura DeMarco – Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois, Chicago
A classification of the dynamics of polynomials in one complex variable has remained elusive, even when considering only the simpler "structurally stable" polynomials. In this talk, I will describe the basics of polynomial iteration, leading up to recent results in the direction of a complete classification. In particular, I will describe a (singular) metric on the complex plane induced by the iteration of a polynomial. I will explain how this geometric structure relates to topological conjugacy classes within the moduli space of polynomials.

The Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process: Integrable Structure and Limit Theorems

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 11:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Distinguished Professor Craig Tracy – University of California, Davis
The asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) is a continuous time Markov process of interacting particles on a lattice \Gamma. ASEP is defined by two rules: (1) A particle at x \in \Gamma waits an exponential time with parameter one, and then chooses y \in \Gamma with probability p(x, y); (2) If y is vacant at that time it moves to y, while if y is occupied it remains at x. The main interest lies in infinite particle systems. In this lecture we consider the ASEP on the integer lattice {\mathbb Z} with nearest neighbor jump rule: p(x, x+1) = p, p(x, x-1) = 1-p and p \ne 1/2. The integrable structure is that of Bethe Ansatz. We discuss various limit theorems which in certain cases establishes KPZ universality.

Big Bang and the Quantum

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - 15:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Chemistry and Biochemistry Boggs Building, Room B-6A
Speaker
Abhay Ashtekar – Department of Physics and Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry, Pennsylvania State University –

Please Note: Pre-reception at 2:30 in Room N201.  If you would like to meet with Prof. Ashtekar while he is on campus (at the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics - Boggs building), please contact lori.federico@physics.gatech.edu.

General relativity is based on a deep interplay between physics and mathematics: Gravity is encoded in geometry. It has had spectacular observational success and has also pushed forward the frontier of geometric analysis. But the theory is incomplete because it ignores quantum physics. It predicts that the space-time ends at singularities such as the big-bang. Physics then comes to a halt. Recent developments in loop quantum gravity show that these predictions arise because the theory has been pushed beyond the domain of its validity. With new inputs from mathematics, one can extend cosmology beyond the big-bang. The talk will provide an overview of this new and rich interplay between physics and mathematics.

Archimedes' Principle and Capillarity

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 16:30 for 2 hours
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
John McCuan – School of Mathematics, Georgia Tech
Archimedes principle may be used to predict if and how certain solid objects float in a liquid bath. The principle, however, neglects to consider capillary forces which can sometimes play an important role. We describe a recent generalization of the principle and how the standard textbook presentation of Archimedes' work may have played a role in delaying the discovery of such generalizations to this late date.

Compensated compactness and isometric embedding

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, April 2, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Marshall Slemrod – Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin
In this talk I will outline recent results of G-Q Chen, Dehua Wang, and me on the problem of isometric embedding a two dimensional Riemannian manifold with negative Gauss curvature into three dimensional Euclidean space. Remarkably there is very pretty duality between this problem and the equations of steady 2-D gas dynamics. Compensated compactness (L.Tartar and F.Murat) yields proof of existence of solutions to an initial value problem when the prescribed metric is the one associated with the catenoid.

On the dimension of the Navier-Stokes singular set

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Walter Craig – McMaster University
A new estimate on weak solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations in three dimensions gives some information about the partial regularity of solutions. In particular, if energy concentration takes place, the dimension of the microlocal singular set cannot be too small. This estimate has a dynamical systems proof. These results are joint work with M. Arnold and A. Biryuk.

Dimers and random interfaces

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, March 5, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Rick Kenyon – Mathematics Department, Brown University
This is joint work with Andrei Okounkov. The ``honeycomb dimer model'' is a natural model of discrete random surfaces in R^3. It is possible to write down a ``Law of Large Numbers" for such surfaces which describes the typical shape of a random surface when the mesh size tends to zero. Surprisingly, one can parameterize these limit shapes in a very simple way using analytic functions, somewhat reminiscent of the Weierstrass parameterization of minimal surfaces. This is even more surprising since the limit shapes tend to be facetted, that is, only piecewise analytic. There is a large family of boundary conditions for which we can obtain exact solutions to the limit shape problem using algebraic geometry techniques. This family includes the (well-known) solution to the limit shape of a ``boxed plane partition'' and has many generalizations.

Geometry and complexity of partition bijections

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, February 26, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Igor Pak – University of Minnesota
The study of partition identities has a long history going back to Euler, with applications ranging from Analysis to Number Theory, from Enumerative Combina- torics to Probability. Partition bijections is a combinatorial approach which often gives the shortest and the most elegant proofs of these identities. These bijections are then often used to generalize the identities, find "hidden symmetries", etc. In the talk I will present a modern approach to partition bijections based on the geometry of random partitions and complexity ideas.

Molecular topology - Applying graph theory to health science

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Amigo Garcia – Miguel Hernández University, Spain
Molecular topology is an application of graph theory to fields like chemistry, biology and pharmacology, in which the molecular structure matters. Its scope is the topological characterization of molecules by means of numerical invariants, called topological indices, which are the main ingredient of the molecular topological models. These models have been instrumental in the discovery of new applications of naturally occurring molecules, as well as in the design of synthetic molecules with specific chemical, biological or pharmacological properties. The talk will focus on pharmacological applications.

On the long-time behavior of 2-d flows

Series
School of Mathematics Colloquium
Time
Thursday, February 5, 2009 - 11:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Alexander Shnirelman – Department of Mathematics, Concordia University
Consider the 2-d ideal incompressible fluid moving inside a bounded domain (say 2-d torus). It is described by 2-d Euler equations which have unique global solution; thus, we have a dynamical system in the space of sufficiently regular incompressible vector fields. The global properties of this system are poorly studied, and, as much as we know, paradoxical. It turns out that there exists a global attractor (in the energy norm), i.e. a set in the phase space attracting all trajectories (in spite the fact that the system is conservative). This apparent contradiction leads to some deep questions of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.

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