University of Georgia
Department of Mathematics

Seminar Schedule
April 23– April 27, 2007

All Seminars are held in Boyd Graduate Studies Bldg. unless otherwise noted.

MONDAY, April 23, 2007

Algebra
2:30pm, Room 410
Speaker: Kate Hurley, Georgia Tech
Title of talk: Invariant harmonic polynomials and Virasoro highest-weight vectors.
Abstract: Among its other properties, every vertex operator algebra is a module for the Virasoro Lie algebra. This talk examines using harmonic polynomials to find highest-weight submodules and discuses some exceptional cases in which some submodules cannot exist.

Topology Seminar
2:30pm, Room 304
Speaker: TBA
Title of talk: TBA

Faculty and Graduate Social
3:00pm, Room 409
Coffee, Tea and Cookies

Colloquium
3:30pm, Room 323
Speaker: Professor R. Parthasarathy, Tata Institute
Title of talk: On the quantum analogue of a coherent family of modules at roots of 1
Abstract: This talk is about arriving at a quantum analogue ${\overline{\pi}(\mu)}_{\mu}$ for the quantum group $U_{\lambda}$ at an $\ell$-th root of 1 of a given coherent family of modules ${\pi(\mu)}_{\mu}$ of the enveloping algebra $U$ of a finite dimensional semisimple Lie algebra $\mathfrak g$. We will discuss an open problem and indicate what is involved in its solution (at present known only in low rank). Combined with the observation that one can almost surely 'put' any interesting representation as a member of a coherent family, This gives us a potential candidate which can be regarded as the quantum analogue of the given representation.

TUESDAY, April 24, 2007

VIGRE-Graduate Student Seminar
2:00pm, Room 304
Speaker: Efren Ruiz, University of Toronto
Title of talk: The Elliott Classification Program
Abstract: The program to classify separable C*-algebra can be thought as a non-commutative version to the program to classify compact Hausdorff spaces. It turns out that invariants introduced in algebraic topology are complete invariants for certain classes of C*-algebras. The aim of this talk is to give an introduction to the program to classify separable C*-algebras. In particular, I will talk about the ground breaking work of George Elliott involving approximately finite dimensional C*-algebras.

WEDNESDAY, April 25, 2007

Algebraic Geometry
2:30pm, Room 410
Speaker: Valery Alexeev, University of Georgia
Title of talk: On tropical curves, grassmannians, and tropical moduli spaces
Abstract: Tropical geometry brings a fresh perspective to many problems in
algebraic geometry, and in many situations is arguably easier for computations than the standard tools. I will give an overview of mostly well-known results of Mikhalkin, Gathmann-Hartwig and Speyer-Sturmfels.

Faculty and Graduate Social
3:00pm, Room 409
Coffee, Tea, Cookies

Number Theory/Arithmetic Geometry
3:30pm, Room 304
Speaker: TBA
Title of talk: TBA
Abstract: TBA

VIGRE – Quantum Mechanics
5:00pm, Room 302

THURSDAY, April 26, 2007

VIGRE – ODE
2:00pm, Room 326

VIGRE – Geometry
2:00pm, Room 410

Special Math Education Seminar
3:30pm, Room 304
Speaker: Emilie Wiesner, University of Georgia
Title of talk: How Undergraduates Use Their Math Textbooks
Abstract: While most mathematics textbooks are written to help the reader develop a better understanding of the mathematical content, teachers' anecdotes suggest that many undergraduate students do not use their textbooks in ways that help them gain this understanding. However, this topic has not previously been studied in detail.

I will present results from a pilot study (conducted with students here at UGA as well as other schools) addressing the issue of how students use their mathematics textbooks. Our analysis of student responses has revealed trends that are consistent with anecdotal information as well as some new perspectives on the role of textbooks.

FRIDAY, April 27, 2007

Applied Math Seminar
12:20pm-1:10pm, Room 304
(pizza at 12:10pm)
Speaker: Dan Kannan, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Some Asymptotics of Self-Interacting Stochastic Chains
Abstract: The protein folding, dark matter, chemotaxis, and polymers in solution are a few of the examples of self-interacting systems. Probabilists modeled, independently, some nearest neighbor interactions on lattices using random walks in random environmens, (recently applying such random walks to some of the above systems). We present, in this lecture, a more general foundation of self-interacting stochastic chains (SISC) and consider one or more of the following symptotic properties of the SISC: 1. Stability, 2. Functional limit theorems, and 3. Large deviation principle. More about speaker, check here.

Geometry
2:30pm, Room 410
Speaker: Aja Johnson, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Deformations of Space Curves
Abstract: A curvature is non-degenerate (or regular) if its' curvature does not vanish anywhere on the curve. A regular homotopy between regular closed curves A_0 and A_1 is a continuous family of regular closed curves interpolating between these two. In this talk, we classify regular curves in R^3 up to regular homotopy.

VIGRE–Algebra
3:30pm, Room 304

VIGRE - Hodge Theoretic questions in Algebraic Geometry
2:30-5:00pm, Room 303