University of Georgia
Department of Mathematics

Seminar Schedule
October 20 - October 24, 2003

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

MONDAY, October 20, 2003

NSF VIGRE Review Panel
Richard Millman, Hans Kaper, Frank Gilfeather
Schedule of meetings:
8:30-9:45 VIGRE oversight committee, room 304
9:45-10:00 break
* 10:00-11:00 graduate students, room 304
11:00-11:45 Dean Wyatt Anderson, room 304
11:45-1:00 lunch (NSF panel meeting)
1:00-1:30 break
1:30-2:30 postdocs, room 410
2:30-3:00 undergraduates, room 410
3:00-5:00 (NSF panel meeting), room 410

*Discussion of UGA's VIGRE program
10:00-11:00 am, room 304
Speaker: Richard Millman, NSF VIGRE Director
Abstract: A committee of three mathematicians -- NSF VIGRE Director Richard Millman, Hans Kaper of NSF, and Frank Gilfeather of the University of New Mexico -- will visit the mathematics department to evaluate our VIGRE program for a possible 2-year extension of the grant. One of their key meetings will be with all of our graduate students. In this meeting the committee will ask for students' feedback on VIGRE.

Numerical Analysis
1:30p.m., Room 524
No Meeting this week

Geometry
1:30p.m., Room 323
Speaker: John McCleary, Vassar College
Title of talk: On the closed geodesics problem: topology and algebra
Abstract: Given a closed compact Riemannian manifold M of dimension greater than 1, do there exist infinitely many closed geodesics on M? This question can be attacked using Morse theory, making it a problem in algebraic topology. Methods like Hochschild homology turn out to give a computational toehold.

Topology
2:30p.m., Room 322
No Meeting this week

VIGRE - Algebra Seminar
2:30p.m., Room 322
Speaker: Brian Boe, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Nilpotent varieties for the adjoint representations of classical groups via tensor products.

Faculty and Graduate Social
3:00p.m., Room 409
Coffee, Tea, Cookies

Lie Theory
3:30p.m., Room 303
No Meeting this week

TUESDAY, October 21, 2003

VIGRE Graduate Student Seminar
2:00-3:15pm, Room 304
Please see Monday, October 20, 2003

Analysis
3:30p.m., Room 326
Speaker: TBA
Title of talk: TBA

WEDNESDAY, October 22, 2003

Group Representation & Cohomology
2:30p.m., Room 410
Speaker: Dave Benson, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Stable and derived categories of modules, continued

Algebraic Geometry
2:30pm, Room 303
Speaker: Valery Alexeev, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Introduction to Mori Program and termination of flips
Abstract: This is going to be a gentle introduction into Minimal Model Theory (Mori theory). It should be accessible to any graduate student with a very limited knowledge of algebraic geometry. In addition, I will review the present state of affairs and, as to prepare for the advanced talk by Shokurov next week, recall the very elementary Shokurov's proof of termination of flips in dimension 4.

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

Number Theory/Arithmetic Geometry
3:45- 4:45pm, Room 304
Speaker: Matthew Baker, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Salem numbers
Abstract: A Salem number is an algebraic integer with one real conjugate bigger than 1, one less than 1, and all other complex conjugates lying on the unit circle. There are a number of open questions about Salem numbers. I will discuss some of these questions, as well as sketch the recent proof by Smyth and McKee that there are Salem numbers of every trace.

THURSDAY, October 23, 2003

VIGRE - Contact Topology
9:00a.m., Room 326

VIGRE Quantum Mechanics Seminar
2:00p.m., Room 303
Speaker: Cal Burgoyne and Robert Varley, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Angular momentum operators in quantum mechanics

Student Number Theory
3:30p.m., Room 304
Speaker: Peter Petrov, University of Georgia
Title of talk: Introducing motives, continued

FRIDAY, October 24, 2003

CATS
1:25p.m., Room 306
Speaker: Valeri Cormani, University of Georgia, Dept. of Math
Title of talk: The size of a triangulation and the minimal length triangulation

Wavelet Analysis
3:30p.m., Room 304*
*Please note change of time and room.
Speaker: Charles K. Chui (Stanford and Univ. of Missouri at St. Louis)
Title of talk: Image Denoising and Enhancement Methods.