The Department of Mathematics at UGA is pleased to provide a special opportunity through an REU grant to undergraduate students interested in working on Faculty projects. The projects entail approximately 10 hours of work per week, paid at an hourly rate of $12.
The following faculty projects are currently in need of student workers:
Project: ConfBlocks: software for computing vector bundles of conformal blocks
Faculty: Valery Alexeev, Angela Gibney, David Swinarski
Contact: David Swinarski [davids@math.uga.edu].
Prerequisites: Math 2260, Math 2500, or Math 3000. Knowledge of C++ and/or Python preferred.
Estimated project lifetime: Two semesters
Description: Vector bundles of conformal blocks are very important in several areas of math and physics, including algebraic geometry, representation theory, string theory, and conformal field theory. Our group has written code inside a specialized computer algebra system called Macaulay 2 to compute examples and features of these vector bundles.
We are looking for 2 - 4 people to help us develop code in two new directions: 1. a standalone C++ program. 2. a Python or Cython version suitable for inclusion in Sage.
Upon completion, our work will be released as free, open source software.
Some of the challenges include the need for high precision arithmetic and interfacing with an external program called Kac. We would also like to develop an object-oriented approach and explore possibilities for parallelization and memoization.
While the vector bundles of conformal blocks are notoriously difficult to understand, coding the formulas is much easier! Little more than knowledge of matrix multiplication and vector spaces is required, and can be learned on the job.
