Exam Orientation sessions

St Luke's ChapelFor any students due to sit their exams in Weeks 4-9 of Trinity term in a 'small room' venue, this venue will be St Luke's Chapel, just outside the Mathematical Institute. 

End of term feedback questionnaire

As the end of term approaches, we would like to request your feedback on the lectures and classes you have attended this term. This is a chance to give us detailed feedback on what has worked well, what could be improved, and what your experience has been like.

OxWIM Day

The third annual Oxford Women and Non-Binary People in Mathematics Day (OxWIM Day) ran very successfully on the 28th of February in the Andrew Wiles Building. This year’s theme was ‘Shaping Success’ and explored the many ways underrepresented genders can define their own success within a mathematical career. 

Short Stories 1

To go wide or to cut inside? That is the question.

What our students do when they don't have maths to do.

Week 7 Student Bulletin

AWBIt's the Week 7 Student Bulletin!

Only one more week until the end of Hilary term!

Read on for exam orientation sessions, end of term feedback questionnaires and the Oxford Maths Festival.

Measurement of ion acceleration and diffusion in a laser-driven magnetized plasma
 Chu, J Halliday, J Heaton, C Moczulski, K Blazevic, A Schumacher, D Metternich, M Nazary, H Arrowsmith, C Bell, A Beyer, K Bott, A Campbell, T Hansen, E Lamb, D Miniati, F Neumayer, P Palmer, C Reville, B Reyes, A Sarkar, S Scopatz, A Spindloe, C Stuart, C Wen, H Tzeferacos, P Bingham, R Gregori, G Nature Communications (02 Mar 2026)
Lipopolysaccharide confinement in the bacterial outer membrane is governed by interactions within the conserved Lipid A anchor.
 Nabarro, J Leaman, R Lenton, S Mantion, L Spears, R Coles, M Pushkin, D Fascione, M Baumann, C The EMBO journal (17 Feb 2026)
Wed, 04 Mar 2026

16:00 - 17:00
L6

Introducing Functional Analytic Tensor Categories

Nivedita
(Mathematical Institute University of Oxford )
Abstract

This talk will provide an overview of the landscape of bicommutant categories, these are tensor categories with a strong functional-analytic flavour. I will discuss the evolution of the definition (and give the current version of the definition) and explain precisely how they categorify von Neumann algebras, in the same way a tensor category can be viewed as a categorification of an algebra. We will also introduce the string-calculus that renders the coherences in the definition transparent and workable. 

The necessary background from functional analysis (in particular, operator theory) will be reviewed, and I will conclude with open questions (if waiting for the end of talk is not your style, there are 75 Open problems on André’s website). 

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