Events

Becky Armstrong, Victoria University of Wellington

Analysis Seminar: Twisted groupoids that are not induced by continuous 2-cocycles

Twisted groupoids are generalisations of group extensions that play an important role in C*-algebraic theory: every classifiable C*-algebra has an underlying twisted groupoid model. It is well known that group extensions are in one-to-one correspondence with group 2-cocycles. Analogously, every groupoid 2-cocycle gives rise to a twisted groupoid. However, an example due to Kumjian shows that the converse is not true. Kumjian’s counterexample is a twisted groupoid consisting entirely of isotropy, but in this talk I will present a new example of a twisted groupoid that is not all isotropy, such that the twisted isotropy subgroupoid is not induced by a 2-cocycle. (This is joint work with Abraham C.S. Ng, Aidan Sims, and Yumiao Zhou.)

MC 5417

Carlo Pagano, Concordia University

Hilbert 10 via additive combinatorics

In 1900 Hilbert proposed a list of problems that have been very influential throughout the last century. In 1970 Matiyasevich, building on earlier work of Davis—Putnam—Robinson, proved that Hilbert's 10th problem is undecidable for Z. The problem of extending this result to any ring that is finitely generated over Z (eg ring of integers in number fields) has attracted significant attention since 1970 and, thanks to the efforts of many mathematicians, the task has been reduced to an arithmetic problem about elliptic curves. This problem so far had been solved only conditional on the BSD conjecture (one of the Millenium problems) by Mazur—Rubin.

In joint work with Peter Koymans we have combined additive combinatorics (Green—Tao’s celebrated theorem) with 2-descent (an old technique dating back to Fermat) to solve this problem about elliptic curves unconditionally. This shows that Hilbert 10 is undecidable over any finitely generated infinite commutative ring.

In this colloquium I will provide a gentle introduction to this undecidability result, giving a glimpse of how mathematical logic, number theory and additive combinatorics meet into one story.

MC 5501

Miao Gu, University of Michigan

On Triple Product L-functions

The Poisson summation conjecture of Braverman-Kazhdan, Lafforgue, Ngo and Sakellaridis is an ambitious proposal to prove analytic properties of quite general Langlands L-functions using vast generalizations of the Poisson summation formula. In this talk, we present the construction of a generalized Whittaker induction such that the associated L-function is the product of the triple product L-function and L-functions whose analytic properties are understood. We then formulate an extension of the Poisson summation conjecture and prove that it implies the expected analytic properties of triple product L-functions. Finally, we use the fiber bundle method to reduce this extended Poisson summation conjecture to a case of the Poisson summation conjecture in which spectral methods can be employed together with certain local compatibility statements. This is joint work with Jayce Getz, Chun-Hsien Hsu, and Spencer Leslie.

MC 5479

Clement Yung, University of Toronto

Weak A2 spaces, the Kastanas game and strategically Ramsey sets

In the past century, the insight behind the original Ramsey's theorem proved to be applicable to a wide range of mathematics, such as number theory, functional analysis and topology. This spurred two particular directions of Ramsey theory: The first one is known as topological Ramsey theory, a general procedure developed by Todorcevic to prove many seemingly unrelated Ramsey's theorem-like results. The second one is the Ramsey theory of Banach spaces, kickstarted by Gowers' shocking application of Ramsey theory to resolve a long-standing open problem in Banach space theory. In this talk, I introduce the theory of weak A2 spaces, which serves as a possible intersection between these two Ramsey theories and discuss how several infinite games that appeared in these Ramsey theories (the Kastanas game, the Gowers game and the asymptotic game) are closely related.

MC 5479

AJ Fong, University of Waterloo

Finite automorphism groups of fans (with some adjectives)

A fan (with some aformentioned adjectives) is a subdivision of n-space into polyhedral cones from the origin subject to some conditions. I will make this precise and describe a classification of the finite automorphism groups when n=2.

MC 5403

Facundo Camano, University of Waterloo

Bows to Singular Monopoles

We will discuss an approach to constructing singular monopoles on R^3 by Sergey Cherkis. We begin with the background and the traditional approach to constructing singular monopoles via the Nahm equations. We then talk about bows and their representations, along with the resulting moduli spaces and their self-dual instantons. We apply the bow approach to construct self-dual instantons on the multi-Taub-NUT space and then exploit Kronheimer's correspondence to obtain singular monopoles.

MC 5479

Pavlos Kalantzopoulos, UC Irvine

Analysis Seminar: A multiversion of real and complex hypercontractivity

We establish a multiversion of real and complex Gaussian hypercontractivity. More precisely, our result generalizes Nelson’s hypercontractivity in the real setting and the works of Beckner, Weissler, Janson, and Epperson in the complex setting to several functions. The proof relies on heat semigroup methods, where we construct an interpolation map that connects the inequality at the endpoints. As a consequence, we derive sharp multidimensional versions of the Hausdorff-Young inequality, a Noisy Gaussian-Jensen inequality, and the log-Sobolev inequality. This is joint work with Paata Ivanisvili.

MC 5417 or Join on Zoom

Rahim Moosa, University of Waterloo

Zilber dichotomy in DCF_m

We will start reading Omar Leon Sanchez' recent paper by that name.

MC 5403

Jacques van Wyk, University of Waterloo

The Mathematics of Tuning an Instrument; or, Why a Piano Is Always out of Tune

Have you ever wondered why a musical scale is seemingly arbitrarily split into twelve notes? Why twelve? And, how are these notes related? As we will see, there is no one answer to this question—there are multiple systems to define the twelve-note scale, and each one has its own advantages and disadvantages. I will be bringing my guitar and my trumpet to demonstrate how this ambiguity affects the way each instrument is tuned and played, and how, with some instruments like the piano, compromises are made that affect music in subtle ways.

MC 5501

Snacks will be served after.

Andrew Hanlon, Dartmouth College

Mirror Symmetry Seminar: Compactifying 2D mirror symmetry for the algebraic torus

Join on Zoom