Current students

Title:  A threshold for fractional Sudoku completion

Abstract: The popular puzzle game Sudoku presents a player with a 9-by-9 grid having some numbers filled in a few of the cells.  The player must finish filling in numbers from 1 to 9 so that every row, column, and 3-by-3 box contains each of these numbers exactly once.  We can extend Sudoku so that the boxes are $h$-by-$w$, and the overall array is $n$-by-$n$, where $n=hw$.  The puzzle is now similar to completing a latin square of order n, except of course that Sudoku has an additional box condition.

Title: Nash-Williams Orientation for Infinite Graphs

Abstract: Nash-Williams proved in 1960 that an edge-connectivity of 2k is sufficient for a finite graph to admit a k-arc-connected orientation and conjectured that the same holds for infinite graphs. We show that the conjecture is true for locally finite graphs with countably many ends.

This is joint work with Max Pitz and Marcel Koloschin.

Title: Online edge colouring

Abstract: Vizing's Theorem provides an algorithm that edge colors any graph of maximum degree Δ can be edge-colored using Δ+1 colors, which is necessary for some graphs, and at most one higher than necessary for any graph. In online settings, the trivial greedy algorithm requires 2Δ-1 colors, and Bar-Noy, Motwani and Naor in the early 90s showed that this is best possible, at least in the low-degree regime.

Title: Polarization operators in superspace

There will be a pre-seminar presenting relevant background at the beginning graduate level starting at 1:00 pm.

Abstract: The classic coinvariant space is a graded representation of the symmetric group with deep connections to permutation statistics and Hall-Littlewood polynomials. Its generalization, the diagonal harmonics, has a rich connection to Macdonald polynomials and the q,t-Catalan numbers. In this talk, we consider the variant of the classical coinvariant story in the superspace. We briefly survey its connections and recent developments. We introduce polarization operators and discuss a new basis for its alternating component. We also discuss a folklore on cocharge and propose a basis for the super harmonics.

Title: On the intersection density of transitive groups with degree 3p

Abstract: Given a finite transitive group $G\leq \operatorname{Sym}(\Omega)$, a subset $\mathcal{F}\subset G$ is intersecting if any two elements of $\mathcal{F}$ agree on some elements of $\Omega$. The \emph{intersection density} of $G$ is the rational number $\rho(G)$ given by the maximum ratio $\frac{|\mathcal{F}|}{|G|/|\Omega|}$, where $\mathcal{F}$ runs through all intersecting sets of $G$.

Most results on the intersection density focus on particular families of transitive groups. One can look at problems on the intersection density from another perspective. Given an integer $n\geq 3$, we would like to determine the possible intersection densities of transitive groups of degree $n$. This problem turns out to be extremely difficult even in the case where $n$ is a product of two primes.

Title: Wires, bits, and the cost of sorting

Abstract: How hard is it to sort a list of n integers? A basic course on algorithms says it's O(n log n) time, but what if the list is enormous - so big you would need to cover the surface of the moon just to store it?

Title: Online Convex Optimization

Abstract: Online learning (OL) is a theoretical framework for learning with data online. Moreover, we usually make no assumptions on the distribution of the data, allowing it even to be adversarial to the learner. Maybe surprisingly, we can still design algorithms that, in some sense, “successfully learn” in this setting. This level of generality makes many of the ideas, algorithms, and techniques from OL useful in applications in theoretical computer science, optimization in machine learning, and control. In this talk I will give a brief introduction to the key concepts in online learning and  mention a few topics within or adjacent to online learning that I believe cover fundamental ideas in OL and/or with interesting open research questions.

Title: Several Gyrafas-Sumner-type results for treewidth

Abstract: For a graph parameter which goes unbounded at both ends of a robust sparsity spectrum, one naturally asks if it is bounded anywhere in the middle. This is modelled after a well-known conjecture of Gyarfas and Sumner, asking the above question for the chromatic number as the parameter and the girth as the measure of sparsity. We look through this lens at the treewidth as the parameter and present a number of recent results answering the corresponding question in various settings. If time permits, we’ll try to sketch a proof as well as some directions for future work.

This is joint work with Bogdan Alecu, Maria Chudnovsky, Sophie Spirkl and partly with Tara Abrishami.

Title: Multiplicative Weight Update (MWU) Method for Solving Packing/Covering LPs

Abstract: I will present an overview of the MWU technique for solving Packing/Covering LPs easily and efficiently. The talk will be based on a combination of results from the following resources: (1) https://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/1.9781611976014.11 (2) https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arora/pubs/MWsurvey.pdf

Title: Quantum Automorphism Groups of Trees

Abstract: We give a characterisation of quantum automorphism groups of trees. In particular, for every tree, we show how to iteratively construct its quantum automorphism group using free products and free wreath products. This can be considered a quantum version of Jordan’s theorem for the automorphism groups of trees. This is one of the first characterisations of quantum automorphism groups of a natural class of graphs with quantum symmetry. This talk is based on the following preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.04891