Speaker: Elchanan Mossel (MIT)
Title: Lower Bounds on Same-Set Inner Product in Correlated Spaces
Abstract: Suppose we pick X uniformly from {0,1,2}^n and Y is picked by letting each Y(i) = X(i) or
X(i) + 1 mod 3 with probability 0.5 each independently.
Is it true that for every set S with |S| > c 2^n it holds that the probability that both X and Y are in S is at least g(c) > 0, where g does not depend on the dimension n?
Similar questions were asked before in different contexts. For example,
There are exponentially many triangulations of a fixed manifold extremely distant from each other in some natural metric. I will discuss similar results for contractible 2-complexes. In order to prove these for the manifold being the sphere (or a contractible complex) one needs to create topology out of nothing. This is done by studying group theory of the trivial group.
Speaker: Ilan Karpas, HU
Tilte: Families with forbidden intersection patterns
Abstract:
Let l, n be even natural numbers. A pattern p of length l is an element
p = (p1, . . . , pl) ∈ {−, +}^l. Given such a pattern and two sets A, B ⊂ [n], we say that the pair (A, B) forms pattern p if the following conditions are satisfied:
1. A \Delta B = {i_1, . . . , i_l}, where i_1 < i_2 < . . . < i_l,
2. For 1 ≤ j ≤ l, we have i_ j ∈ A \ B if p_ j = + and i_ j ∈ B \ A if p_ j = −.
Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Safra campus, Givat Ram
* This talk is joint with the 20th Midrasha Mathematicae: 60 faces to groups, celebrating Alex Lubotzky's 60th birthday.
The full program for AlexFest, Nov. 6--11, is detailed here:
http://www.as.huji.ac.il/ias/public/121/the20thMidrashaMa2016/program.pdf
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Speaker: László Babai (University of Chicago)
Title: Finite permutation groups and the Graph Isomorphism problem
Updated abstract:
The Graph Isomorphism (GI) problem is the algorithmic problem
Title: Polynomials vanishing on Cartesian products
Abstract:
Let F(x,y,z) be a real trivariate polynomial of constant degree, and let A,B,C be three sets of real numbers, each of size n. How many roots can F have on A x B x C?
Speaker: Doron Puder, TAU
Title: Meanders and Non-Crossing Partitions
Abstract: Imagine a long river and a closed (not self-intersecting) racetrack that crosses the river by bridges 2n times. This is called a meander. How many meanders are there with 2n bridges (up to homeomorphisms of the plane that stabilizes the river)? This challenging question, which is open for several decades now, has connections to several fields of mathematics.
The existence of sharply 2-transitive groups without regular normal subgroup was a longstanding open problem. Recently constructions have been given, at least in certain characteristics. We will survey the current state of the art and explain some constructions and their limitations. (joint work with E. Rips)
