Manchester Building (Hall 2), Hebrew University Jerusalem
A major difficulty in finding polynomial patterns in primes is the need to understand their distribution properties at short scales. We describe how for some polynomial configurations one can overcome this problem by concatenating short scale behavior in "many directions" to long scale behavior for which tools from additive combinatorics are available.
A classical theorem of Erdos and Turan states that if a monic polynomial has small values on the unit circle (relative to its constant coefficient), then its zeros cluster near the unit circle and are close to being equidistributed in angle. In February 2018, K. Soundararajan gave a short and elementary proof of their result using Fourier analysis. I'll present this new proof.
One of the first algorithm any mathematician learns about is the Euclidean division algorithm for the rational integer ring Z. When asking whether other integer rings have similar such division algorithms, we are then led naturally to a geometric interpretation of this algorithm which concerns lattices and their (multiplicative) covering radius.
Since the seminal work of Arnold on the Euler equations (1966), many equations in hydrodynamics were shown to be geodesic equations of diffeomorphism groups of manifolds, with respect to various Sobolev norms. This led to new ways to study these PDEs, and also initiated the study of of the geometry ofthose groups as (infinite dimensional) Riemannian manifolds.
Speaker: Zur Luria, ETH
Title: New bounds for the n-queen's problem
Abstract:
The famous n-queens problem asks: In how many ways can n nonattacking queens be placed on an n by n chessboard? This question also makes sense on the toroidal chessboard, in which opposite sides of the board are identified. In this setting, the n-queens problem counts the number of perfect matchings in a certain regular hypergraph. We give an extremely general bound for such counting problems, which include Sudoku squares and designs.
Speaker: Joel Friedman, UBC
Title: Open Problems Related to the Zeta Functions
Abstract:
We express some open problems in graph theory in terms of Ihara graph zeta
functions, or, equivalently, non-backtracking matrices of graphs. We focus
on "expanders" and random regular graphs, but touch on some seemingly
unrelated problems encoded in zeta functions.
We suggest that zeta functions of sheaves on graphs may have relevance to
complexity theory and to questions of Stark and Terras regarding whether
The miracle of entropy - that the entropy of a measure preserving transformation calculated forward in time (for T) and backwards in time (for T^{-1}) are equal - is, depending on point of view and the definition used, either a triviality or highly surprising. Entropy theory (of Z-actions) plays a key role in analyzing the rigidity of algebraic (diagonalizable) Z^k actions; I show how a strong version of this symmetry property of entropy is useful in studying the measure classification question for such actions.
Joint work with Manfred Einsiedler.
