Abstract:
The Chabauty method is a remarkable tool which employs p-adic analitic methods (in particular Colman integration.) To study rational points on curves. However the method can be applied only when the genus of the curve in question is larger than its Mordell-Weil rank. Kim developed a sophisticated "nonableian" generalisation.
We shall present the classical methid, and give an approachable introduction to Kim's method.
I'm basically going to follow http://math.mit.edu/nt/old/stage_s18.html
Abstract: I will discuss applications of algebraic results to combinatorics, focusing in particular on Lefschetz theorem, Decomposition theorem and Hodge Riemann relations. Secondly, I will discuss proving these results combinatorially, using a technique by McMullen and extended by de Cataldo and Migliorini. Finally, I will discuss Lefschetz type theorems beyond positivity.
Recommended prerequisites: basic commutative algebra
Abstract: The goal of this (and the next) talk is to introduce automorphic L-functions
for GL(n) and other split groups, and to discuss some of their properties and some conjectures.
Key words: L-functions, Langlands dual group, modular forms
Title: Local root numbers for Heisenberg representations
Abstract: On the Langlands program, explicit computation of the local root numbers (or epsilon factors) for Galois representations is an integral part. But for arbitrary Galois representation of higher dimension, we do not have explicit formula for local root numbers. In our recent work (joint with Ernst-Wilhelm Zink) we consider Heisenberg representation (i.e., it represents commutators by scalar matrices) of the Weil
Abstract:
We would like present several results in descriptive set theory involving definable equivalence relations on Polish spaces.
Given an equivalence relation E on a polish space X, we would like to study the classification problem of determining whether two objects x,y in X are E-related.
Abstract: This talk describes two classes of symbolic topological systems, the odometer based and the circular systems. The odometer based systems are ubiquitous--when equipped with invariant measures they form an upwards closed cone in the space of ergodic transformations (in the pre-ordering induced by factor maps). The circular systems are a small class, but represent the diffeomorphisms of the 2-torus built using the Anosov-Katok technique of approximation by conjugacy.
Title: On a local version of the fifth Busemann-Petty Problem
Abstract:
In 1956, Busemann and Petty posed a series of questions about symmetric convex bodies, of which only the first one has been solved. Their fifth problem asks the following.
Let K be an origin symmetric convex body in the n-dimensional Euclidean space and let H_x be a hyperplane passing through the origin orthogonal to a unit direction x. Consider a hyperplane G parallel to H_x and supporting to K and let
C(K,x)=vol(K\cap H_x)dist (0, G).
Title: The Morris model
Abstract: Douglass Morris was a student of Keisler, and in 1970 he announced the
following result: It is consistent with ZF that for every \alpha, there is a set
A_\alpha which is the countable union of countable sets, and the power set of
A_\alpha can be partitioned into \aleph_\alpha non-empty sets.
The result was never published, and survived only in the form of a short
announcement and an exercise in Jech's "The Axiom of Choice". We go over the
proof of this theorem using modern tools, as well as some of its odd
implications about "size" and countability.
