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Welcome to Combinatorics and Optimization
Tutte's Distinguished Lecture Series
The very successful Tutte's 100th Distinguished Lecture Series has now completed. That success has led to a Tutte Distinguished Lecture once per term. The next lecture will happen in the Spring term.
*Recordings of occurred talks are all available on C&O's YouTube Channel.
Grad Studies: Fall 2020 applications now open
New Deadline: February 1, '20
News
- Feb. 3, 2021Luke Postle receives the Coxeter-James Prize
The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) has named Luke Postle as the recipient of the 2021 Coxeter-James Prize for his work in graph theory.
- Jan. 28, 2021The optimal career path
Jodie Wallis (BMath ’93) was a natural fit for Operations Research at the Faculty of Mathematics. “I liked how Operations Research brought together different disciplines and applied directly to business problems,” she affirmed. “That process of taking a problem, considering multiple layers of solutions, and ending up with something that’s elegant and workable in the real world was appealing to me.”
- Jan. 6, 2021David Gosset's paper published in Nature Physics
C&O professor David Gosset has published a paper "Classical algorithms for quantum mean values" in Nature Physics.
Events
- Mar. 5, 2021Tutte Colloquium -Debbie Leung
Title: The embezzlement of entanglement and its applications
Speaker: Debbie Leung Affliation: University of Waterloo Zoom: Please email Emma Watson Abstract:
Embezzlement of entanglement is the (impossible) task of producing an entangled state from a product state via a local change of basis, when a suitable *catalytic* entangled state is available.
The possibility to approximate this task was first observed by van Dam and Hayden in 2002. Since then, the phenomenon is found to play crucial roles in many aspects of quantum information theory. In this talk, we will discuss aspects of embezzlement and some applications (such as why quantum correlations do not form a closed set, and why there are nonlocal games that cannot be played optimally with a finite amount of entanglement, and why additive quantities cannot be more than asymptotically continuous).
- Mar. 8, 2021Algebraic Graph Theory Seminar - Joy Morris
Title: Lexicographic products, wreath products, and generalisations
Speaker: Joy Morris Affiliation: University of Lethbridge Zoom: Contact Soffia Arnadottir Abstract:
I will present a history and overview of some of the work that has been done on the lexicographic product of graphs, and related generalisations. The focus of my talk will be on the automorphism groups of such graphs, and the relationship to the wreath product of permutation groups.
- Mar. 11, 2021Algebraic Combinatorics Seminar - Karen Yeats
Title: Equivalences of Wilson loop diagrams
Speaker: Karen Yeats Affiliation: University of Waterloo Zoom: Contact Karen Yeats Abstract:
I will talk about Wilson loop diagrams, explain a bit about what they are, and some of the combinatorial questions that come out of them, with a focus on when they are equivalent. This is joint work with Susama Agarwala and Zee Fryer.