Title: Harmonic maps with prescribed singularities and applications to general relativity
Abstract: We will present a general theory of existence and uniqueness for harmonic maps with prescribed singularities into Riemannian manifolds with non-positive curvature. The singularities are prescribed along submanifolds of co-dimension 2. This result generalizes one from 1996, and is motivated by a number of recent applications in general relativity including:
* a lower bound on the ADM mass in terms of charge and angular momentum for multiple black holes;
Let H be a self-adjoint operator defined on an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. Given some
spectral information about H, such as the continuity of its spectral measure, what can be said about
the asymptotic spectral properties of its finite dimensional approximations? This is a natural (and
general) question, and can be used to frame many specific problems such as the asymptotics of zeros of
orthogonal polynomials, or eigenvalues of random matrices. We shall discuss some old and new results
Title: Sharp arithmetic spectral transitions and universal hierarchical structure of quasiperiodic eigenfunctions.
Abstract: A very captivating question in solid state physics
is to determine/understand the hierarchical structure of spectral features
of operators describing 2D Bloch electrons in perpendicular magnetic
fields, as related to the continued fraction expansion of the magnetic
flux. In particular, the hierarchical behavior of the eigenfunctions of
the almost Mathieu operators, despite signifi cant numerical studies and
Abstract:
A (countable) group G is homogeneous if whenever g,h are tupples of the same type in G, there is an automorphism of G sending g to h.
We give a characterization of freely-indecomposable torsion-free hyperbolic groups which are homogeneous, in terms of a particular decomposition as a graph of groups - their JSJ decomposition. This is joint work with Chloe Perin.
Abstract: The Gromov non-squeezing theorem in symplectic geometry states that is not possible to embed symplectically a ball into a cylinder of smaller radius, although this can be done with a volume preserving embedding. Hence, the biggest radius of a ball that can be symplectically embedded into a symplectic manifold can be used as a way to measure the "symplectic size'' of the manifold. We call the square of this radius times the number \pi the Gromov width of the symplectic manifold. The Gromov width as a symplectic invariant is extended through the notion of "Symplectic Capacity".
Abstract: Knot Floer homology is an invariant for knots in the three-sphere defined using methods from symplectic geometry. I will describe a new algebraic formulation of this invariant which leads to a reasonably efficient computation of these invariants. This is joint work with Zoltan Szabo.
Abstract:
In 1962, amateur literary theorist and professional mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov wrote: ‘A story is art only if the characters and situations it describes stand a chance of becoming
Abstract: In this talk, I will introduce diffeological spaces and some (co)homology theories on these spaces. I will also talk on Thom-Mather spaces and their (co)homology in the diffeological context.
Abstract: Let X be a simplicial complex on n vertices without missing faces of dimension larger than d. Let L_k denote the k-Laplacian acting on real k-cochains of X and let μ_k(X) denote its minimal eigenvalue. We study the connection between the spectral gaps μ_k(X) for k ≥ d and μ_{d-1}(X). Applications include:
1) A cohomology vanishing theorem for complexes without large missing faces.
2) A fractional Hall type theorem for general position sets in matroids.
Abstract: Let G be a finitely generated group and let G>G_1>G_2 ... be a sequence of finite index normal subgroups of G with trivial intersection.
We expect that the asymptotic behaviour of various group theoretic invariants of the groups G_i should relate to algebraic, topological or measure theoretic properties of G.
A classic example of this is the Luck approximation theorem which says that the growth of the ordinary Betti numbers of sequence G_i is given by the L^2-Betti number of (the classifying space) of G.
