Yun and Zhang compute the Taylor series expansion of an automorphic L-function over a function field, in terms of intersection pairings of certain algebraic cycles on the so-called moduli stack of shtukas. This generalizes the Waldspurger and Gross-Zagier formulas, which concern the first two coefficients. The goal of the seminar is to develop the background necessary to state their formula, and then indicate the structure of the proof. If time allows, we may also discuss applications to the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for elliptic curves over function fields.

Classical group representation theory deals with group actions on linear spaces; we consider group actions on compact convex spaces, preserving topological and convex structure. We focus on irreducible actions, and show that for a large class of groups - including connected Lie groups - these can be determined. There is a close connection between this and the theory of bounded harmonic functions on symmetric spaces and their boundary values.

For a finitely generated subgroup H of the free group F_r, the Stallings graph of H is a finite combinatorial graph, whose edges are labeled by r letters (and their inverses), so that paths in the graphs correspond precisely to the words in H. Furthermore, there is a map between the graphs of two subgroups H and J, precisely when one is a subgroups of the other. Stallings theory studies the algebraic information which is encoded in the combinatorics of these graphs and maps.