# Seminars & Events for 2008-2009

October 13, 2008
5:00pm - 7:00pm
##### Global Schrodinger maps: small data in the critical Sobolev spaces
###### Analysis Seminar

I will discuss recent work on the global regularity of the Schrodinger map initial-value problem with small data, in all dimensions $d\geq 2$.

Speaker: Alexandru D. Ionescu, University of Wisconsin
Location:
Fine Hall 110
October 15, 2008
2:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Heat conduction and Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics: some considerations
###### Statistical Mechanics Seminar

I will present some standard models of Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics focusing mainly on heat conduction. I'll discuss their origin and significance and present some of the available analytical and numerical results. The talk will be at an introductory level.

Speaker: Federico Bonetto, Georgia Institute of Technology
Location:
October 15, 2008
3:30pm - 5:30pm
##### A general unique continuation theorem for the Einstein equations
###### Analysis Seminar

I will discuss a unique continuation result for the vacuum Einstein equations across bifurcate horizons. The main result uses a recent Carleman estimate of Ionescu and Klainerman, together with some geometric gauge constructions. More broadly I will indicate how Carleman estimates for the wave operator can be used to derive unique continuation for the Einstein equations.

Speaker: Spyridon Alexakis, MIT
Location:
Fine Hall 110
October 15, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### Unitary representations of simple Lie groups
###### Department Colloquium

By 1950, work of Gelfand and others had led to a general program for "non-commutative harmonic analysis": understanding very general mathematical problems (particularly of geometry or analysis) in the presence of a (non-commutative) symmetry group G. A first step in that program is classification of unitary representations - that is, the realizations of G as automorphisms of a Hilbert space.

Speaker: David Vogan, MIT
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 16, 2008
12:30pm - 2:30pm
##### Ergodic Theory

I will be discussing two basic invariants of ergodic theory, entropy and ergodicity, through the problems they were invented to solve. This talk will be heavy on examples and low on rigour.

Speaker: Sam Ruth, Princeton University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 16, 2008
2:30pm - 4:30pm
##### The Maximum Number of Colorings of Graphs of Given Order and Size
###### Discrete Mathematics Seminar

Wilf asked in the 1980s about $f(n,m,l)$, the maximum number of $l$-colorings that a graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges can have. We essentially solve this problem for $l=3$, in particular proving, for all large $n$, the conjecture of Lazebnik (1989) that if $m\le n^2/4$ then the maximum number of 3-colorings is achieved by a semi-complete biparite graph.

Speaker: Oleg Pikhurko, Carnegie-Mellon University
Location:
Fine Hall 224
October 16, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### Khovanov homology, open books, and tight contact structures
###### Topology Seminar

I will discuss a construction modeled on Khovanov homology which associates to a surface, $S$, and a product of Dehn twists, $\Phi$, a group $Kh(S,\Phi)$. The group $Kh(S,\Phi)$ may sometimes be used to determine whether the contact structure compatible with the open book $(S,Phi)$ is tight or non-fillable.

Speaker: John Baldwin, Princeton University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 16, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### Dynamical Mordell-Lang problems
###### Princeton University/IAS Number Theory Seminar

The Mordell-Lang conjecture, proved by Faltings and Vojta, states that a finitely generated subgroup of a semiabelian variety intersects any subvariety of that semiabelian variety in a union of finitely many translates of subgroups.

Speaker: Thomas J. Tucker, University of Rochester
Location:
IAS - West Building Lecture Hall
October 17, 2008
3:00pm - 5:00pm
##### The space of positive scalar curvature metrics on the three-sphere
###### Differential Geometry & Geometric Analysis Seminar

In this talk we will discuss a proof of the path-connectedness of the space of positive scalar curvature metrics on the three-sphere. The proof uses the Ricci flow with surgery and the connected sum construction of Gromov and Lawson. The work of Perelman on Hamilton's Ricci flow is fundamental.

Speaker: Fernando Coda Marques, Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada, Brasil
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 20, 2008
4:00pm - 6:00pm
##### Group representation patterns in digital signal processing
###### PACM/Applied Mathematics Colloquium

In the lecture we will explain how various fundamental structures from group representation theory appear naturally in the context of discrete harmonic analysis and can be applied to solve concrete problems from digital signal processing.

Speaker: Shamgar Gurevich, UCB and Ronny Hadani, UC, University of California, Berkeley and University of Chicago
Location:
Fine Hall 214
October 21, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### Leaves in moduli spaces in characteristic p
###### Algebraic Geometry Seminar

We try to understand the geometry of the moduli space of polarized abelian varieties in characteristic p. E.g. the phenomenon that Hecke orbits blow up and down in a rather unpredictable way. Choose a point $x$, corresponding to a polarized abelian variety. We study $C(x)$ consisting of all moduli points of polarized abelian varieties which have the same $p$-adic and $\ell$-adic invariants.

Speaker: Frans Oort, University of Utrecht and Columbia University
Location:
Fine Hall 322
October 22, 2008
2:00pm - 4:00pm
##### Thermostats: equivalence and thermodynamic limit
###### Statistical Mechanics Seminar

An ongoing question is whether the isokinetic, isoenergetic or other thermostat models are acceptable as model of thermostats in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics as opposed to thermostats which are made of infinite Hamiltonian systems in thermal equilibrium.

Speaker: Giovanni Gallavotti, Sapienza University of Rome and Rutgers University
Location:
October 22, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### Three conjectures in arithmetic geometry
###### Department Colloquium

We discuss the Manin-Mumford conjecture (about the closure of any set of torsion points in an abelian variety), the André-Oort conjecture (about the closure of any set of CM-points in a moduli space) and the Hecke Orbit Conjecture (about the closure of the Hecke orbit of a moduli point). These conjectures, on the borderline of geometry and arithmetic, seem to be (have been) solved.

Speaker: Frans Oort, University of Utrecht and Columbia University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 23, 2008
12:30pm - 2:30pm
##### Differential Galois Theory

Algebraic groups, differential equations, and Galois theory: who isn't scared of at least one of those? It being the last GSS talk before Halloween, I'll do my best to mention all three. The ostensible purpose of doing so will be to explain why certain indefinite integrals cannot be written in terms of elementary functions. No knowledge of elementary functions will be presupposed.

Speaker: Vivek Shende, Princeton University
Location:
Fine Hall 314
October 23, 2008
2:15pm - 4:15pm
##### Eliminating cycles in the torus via isoperimetric inequalities
###### Discrete Mathematics Seminar

Let $G_{\infty}=(C_m^d)_{\infty}$ denote the graph whose set of vertices is $\{1,\ldots ,m\}^d$, where two distinct vertices are adjacent iff they are either equal or adjacent in $C_m$ in each coordinate. Let $G_{1}=(C_m^d)_1$ denote the graph on the same set of vertices in which two vertices are adjacent iff they are adjacent in one coordinate in $C_m$ and equal in all others.

Speaker: Noga Alon, Tel-Aviv University and IAS
Location:
Fine Hall 224
October 23, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### On Simons conjecture for knots
###### Topology Seminar

Let $K$ be a non-trivial knot in $S3$. Simon's Conjecture asserts that $\pi_1(S3\setminus K)$ surjects only finitely many distinct knot groups. We discuss the proof of this for a class of small knots that includes 2-bridge knots.

Speaker: Alan Reid, IAS and University of Texas at Austin
Location:
Fine Hall 322
October 23, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### The coefficients of harmonic Maass forms and combinatorial applications
###### Princeton University/IAS Number Theory Seminar

The subject of partition theory has long been an excellent source of combinatorial hypergeometric q-series that are also automorphic forms.

Speaker: Karl Mahlburg, MIT
Location:
Fine Hall 214
October 30, 2008
4:30pm - 6:30pm
##### On the Tate and Langlands--Rapoport conjectures for Shimura varieties of Hodge type
###### Princeton University/IAS Number Theory Seminar

Let $p$ be a prime. Let $F$ be an algebraic closure of the finite field $F_p$ with $p$ elements. An integral canonical model $N$ of a Shimura variety $Sh(G,X)$ of Hodge type is a regular, closed subscheme of a suitable pull back of the Mumford moduli tower $M$ over $Z_{(p)}$.

Speaker: A. Vasiu, Binghamton University
Location:
IAS Room S-101
November 3, 2008
4:00pm - 6:00pm
##### Spectral-element and adjoint methods in computational seismology
###### PACM/Applied Mathematics Colloquium

We provide an introduction to the use of spectral-element and adjoint methods in seismology. Following a brief review of the basic equations that govern seismic wave propagation, we discuss how these equations may be solved numerically based upon the spectral-element method (SEM) to address the forward problem in seismology.

Speaker: Jeroen Tromp, PACM & Geosciences, Princeton University
Location:
Fine Hall 214
November 3, 2008
4:00pm - 6:00pm
##### On the asymptotic behavior of solutions to the Einstein equations
###### Analysis Seminar
Speaker: Hans Lindblad, University of California, San Diego
Location:
Fine Hall 110