Abstract:
A central problem in complex analysis is how to describe zero sets of power series in terms of their coefficients. In general, it is difficult to obtain precise results for a given function. However, when the function is defined by a power series, whose coefficients are independent random variables, such results can be obtained. Moreover, if the coefficients are complex Gaussians, the results are especially elegant. In particular, in this talk I will discuss some different notions of "rigidity" of the zero sets.

Given a convex polytope P, what is the number of integer points in P? This problem is of great interest in combinatorics and discrete geometry, with many important applications ranging from integer programming to statistics. From a computational point of view it is hopeless in any dimensions, as the knapsack problem is a special case. Perhaps surprisingly, in bounded dimension the problem becomes tractable. How far can one go? Can one count points in projections of P, finite intersections of such projections, etc?

Abstract: 

From Betti cohomology to crystalline cohomology

Read more about Landau Lecture 1: From Betti cohomology to crystalline cohomology (colloquium)

Representation theory of non-compact real groups, such as SL(2,R), is a fundamental discipline with uses in harmonic analysis, number theory, physics, and more. This theory is analytical in nature, but in the course of the 20th century it was algebraized and geometrized (the key contributions are by Harish-Chandra for the former and by Beilinson-Bernstein for the latter). Roughly and generally speaking, algebraization strips layers from the objects of study until we are left with a bare skeleton, amenable to symbolic manipulation.

Abstract: If X is an object such that the notion of an automorphism of X is defined (e.g.,
an algebraic structure, a graph, a topological space, etc.), then one can define an
equivalence relation ∼ on X via x ∼ y if and only if α(x) = y for some automorphism
α of X. The equivalence classes of ∼ are called the automorphism orbits of X.
Say that X is highly symmetric if and only if all elements of X lie in the same
automorphism orbit. Finite highly symmetric objects are studied across various

Abstract: Mirror symmetry is a correspondence between symplectic geometry on a manifold M and complex geometry on a mirror manifold W. The question of why one sort of geometry on M should be reflected in another sort of geometry on the topologically distinct manifold W, and the question of how to find W given M, are a priori highly mysterious. One attempt to explain the mysteries of mirror symmetry is the SYZ conjecture, which asserts that the mirror manifold W can be realized as the moduli space of certain objects of a category associated to M.

Numerous problems in extremal hypergraph theory ask to determine the maximal size of a k-uniform hypergraph on n vertices that does not contain an 'enlarged' copy H^+ of a fixed hypergraph H. These include well-known problems such as the Erdos-Sos 'forbidding one intersection' problem and the Frankl-Furedi 'special simplex' problem.

A finite graph is automatically also a metric space, but is there any interesting geometry to speak of? In this lecture I will try to convey the idea that indeed there is very interesting geometry to explore here. I will say something on the local side of this as well as on the global aspects. The k-local profile of a big graph G is the following distribution. You sample uniformly at random k vertices in G and observe the subgraph that they span. Question - which distributions can occur? We know some of the answer but by and large it is very open.

Consider a simplicial complex that allows for an embedding into R^d. How many faces of dimension d/2 or higher can it have? How dense can they be?
This basic question goes back to Descartes. Using it and other rather fundamental combinatorial problems, I will motivate and introduce a version of Grothendieck's "standard conjectures" beyond positivity (which will be explored in detail in the Sunday Seminar).
All notions used will be explained in the talk (I will make an effort to be very elementary)

Abstract:
The nodal set of a Laplacian eigenfunction forms a partition of the underlying manifold.
An alternative partition, based on the gradient field of the eigenfunction, is via the so called Neumann domains.
A Neumann domain of an eigenfunction is a connected component of the intersection between the stable
manifold of a certain minimum and the unstable manifold of a certain maximum.
We introduce this subject, discuss various properties of Neumann domains and
point out the similarities and differences between nodal domains and Neumann domains.

In the early 1970’s, Hindman proved a beautiful theorem in
additive Ramsey theory asserting that for any partition of the set of
natural numbers into finitely many cells, there exists some infinite set
such that all of its finite sums belong to a single cell.
In this talk, we shall address generalizations of this statement to the
realm of the uncountable. Among other things, we shall present a
negative partition relation for the real line which simultaneously
generalizes a recent theorem of Hindman, Leader and Strauss, and a