Past

In this lecture Persi Diaconis will take a look at some of our most primitive images of chance - flipping a coin, rolling a roulette wheel and shuffling cards - and via a little bit of mathematics (and a smidgen of physics) show that sometimes things are not very random at all. Indeed chance is sometimes confused with frequency and this confusion caries over to a confusion between chance and evidence. All of which explains our wild misuse of probability and statistical models.

Persi Diaconis is world-renowned for his study of mathematical problems involving randomness and randomisation. He is the co-author of 'Ten Great Ideas about Chance (2017) and is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University. 

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The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

We consider the behaviors of global solutions to the initial value problems for the multi-dimensional Navier-Stokes(Euler)-Fokker-Planck equations. It is shown that due to the micro-macro coupling effects of relaxation damping type, the sound wave type propagation of this NSFP or EFP system for two-phase fluids is observed with the wave speed determined by the two-phase fluids. This phenomena can not be observed for the pure Fokker-Planck equation and the Navier-Stokes(Euler) equation with frictional damping.

Geometric Invariant Theory is a central tool in the construction of moduli spaces, and shares the property ubiquitous among such tools that certain so-called 'unstable' objects must be excluded if the moduli space is to be well behaved. However, instability in GIT is a structured phenomenon: after making a choice of a certain invariant inner product, one has the HKKN stratification of the parameter space which, morally, sorts the objects according to how unstable they are. I will explain how one can use recent results of Berczi-Doran-Hawes-Kirwan in Non-Reductive GIT to perform quotients of these unstable strata as well, extending the classifications given by classical moduli spaces. This can be carried out, at least in principle, for any moduli problem that can be posed using GIT, and I will discuss two examples in particular: unstable (i.e. singular) curves, and coherent sheaves of fixed Harder-Narasimhan type. The latter of these is joint work with Gergely Berczi, Victoria Hoskins and Frances Kirwan.
 

I will explain how the definition of Bridgeland stability condition on a triangulated category C can be generalised to allow for massless objects. This allows one to construct a partial compactification of the stability space Stab(C) in which each `boundary stratum' is related to Stab(C/N) for a thick subcategory N of C, and has a neighbourhood which fibres over (an open subset of) Stab(N). This is joint work with Nathan Broomhead, David Pauksztello, and David Ploog.
 

Enumerative  invariants since 1995 are defined as integrals of cohomology classes over a particular homology class, called the virtual fundamental class. When there is a torus action, the virtual fundamental class is localized to the fixed points and this turned out to be the most effective technique for computation of the virtual integrals so far. About 10 years ago, Jun Li and I discovered that when there is a cosection of the obstruction sheaf, the virtual fundamental class is localized to the zero locus of the cosection. This also turned out to be quite useful for computation of Gromov-Witten invariants and more. In this talk, I will discuss a generalization of the cosection localization to real classes which provides us with a purely topological theory of Fan-Jarvis-Ruan-Witten invariants (quantum singularity theory) as well as some GLSM invariants. Based on a joint work with Jun Li at arXiv:1806.00116.
 

We solve the construction of the turbulent two point functions in the following manner:

A mathematical theory, based on a few physical laws and principles, determines the construction of the turbulent two point function as the expectation value of a statistically defined random field. The random field is realized via an infinite induction, each step of which is given in closed form.

Some version of such models have been known to physicists for some 25 years. Our improvements are two fold:

1. Some details in the reasoning appear to be missing and are added here.
2. The mathematical nature of the algorithm, difficult to discern within the physics presentation, is more clearly isolated.

Because the construction is complex, usable approximations, known as surrogate models, have also been developed.

The importance of these results lies in the use of the two point function to improve on the subgrid models of Lecture I.

We also explain limitations. For the latter, we look at the deflagration to detonation transition within a type Ia supernova and decide that a completely different methodology is recommended. We propose to embed multifractal ideas within a physics simulation package, rather than attempting to embed the complex formalism of turbulent deflagration into the single fluid incompressible model of the two point function. Thus the physics based simulation model becomes its own surrogate turbulence model.

We discuss three methods for the simulation of turbulent fluids. The issue we address is not the important issue of numerical algorithms, but the even more basic question of the equations to be solved, otherwise known as the turbulence model.  These equations are not simply the Navier-Stokes equations, but have extra, turbulence related terms, related to turbulent viscosity, turbulent diffusion and turbulent thermal conductivity. The extra terms are not “standard textbook” physics, but are hypothesized based on physical reasoning. Here we are concerned with these extra terms.

The many models, divided into broad classes, differ greatly in

Dependence on data
Complexity
Purpose and usage

For this reason, each of the classes of models has its own rationale and domain of usage.

We survey the landscape of turbulence models.

Given a turbulence model, we ask: what is the nature of convergence that a numerical algorithm should strive for? The answer to this question lies in an existence theory for the Euler equation based on the Kolmogorov 1941 turbulent scaling law, taken as a hypothesis (joint work with G-Q Chen).

When studying a systems of conservation laws in several space dimensions, A. Bressan conjectured that the flows $X^n(t)$ generated by a smooth vector fields $\mathbf b^n(t,x)$,
\[
\frac{d}{dt} X^n(t,y) = \mathbf b^n(t,X(t,y)),
\]
are compact in $L^1(I\!\!R^d)$ for all $t \in [0,T]$ if $\mathbf b^n \in L^\infty \cap \mathrm{BV}((0,t) \times I\!\!R^d)$ and they are nearly incompressible, i.e.
\[
\frac{1}{C} \leq \det(\nabla_y X(t,y)) \leq C
\]
for some constant $C$. This conjecture is implied by the uniqueness of the solution to the linear transport equation
\[
\partial_t \rho + \mathrm{div}_x(\rho \mathbf b) = 0, \quad \rho \in L^\infty((0,T) \times I\!\!R^d),
\]
and it is the natural extension of a series of results concerning vector fields $\mathbf b(t,x)$ with Sobolev regularity.

We will give a general framework to approach the uniqueness problem for the linear transport equation and to prove Bressan's conjecture.

In the 6th century, the phenomena of irregularity of the solar motion and parallax of the moon were found by Chinese astronomers. This made the calculation of solar eclipse much more complex than before. The strategy that Chinese calendar-makers dealt with was different from the geometrical model system like Greek astronomers taken as. What Chinese astronomers chose is a numerical algorithm system which was widely taken as a thinking mode to construct the theory of mathematical astronomy in old China. 

Relatively little is known about the correspondence of William Burnside, a pioneer of group theory in the UK. There are only a few dozen extant letters from or to him, though they are not without interest. However, one of the most noteworthy letters to or at least about him, in that it had a special mention in his obituary in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, has not been positively identified. It's not clear who it was from or when it was sent. We'll look at some possibilities.

The International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICMs) have taken place at (reasonably) regular intervals since 1897, and although their participants may have wanted to confine these events purely to mathematics, they could not help but be affected by wider world events.  This is particularly true of the 1936 ICM, held in Oslo.  In this talk, I will give a whistle-stop tour of the early ICMs, before discussing the circumstances of the Oslo meeting, with a particular focus on the activities of the Nazi-led German delegation.

The emergence of analytic methods in the 17th century opened a new way in order to tackle the elucidation of certain quantities. The strong presence of the circle-squaring problem, focused mainly the attention on π, on which besides the serious doubts about its rationality, it arises an awareness---boosted by the new algebraic approach---of the difficulty of framing it inside algebraic boundaries. The term ``transcendence'' emerges in this context but with a very ambiguous meaning.

The first great step towards its comprehension, took place in the 18th century and came from Johann Heinrich Lambert's hand, who using a new analytical machinery---continued fractions---gave the first proof of irrationality of π. The problem of keeping this number inside the algebraic limits, also receives an especial attention at the end of his Mémoires sur quelques propriétés remarquables des quantités transcendantes, circulaires et logarithmiques, published by the Berlin Academy of Science in 1768. In this work, Lambert after giving to the term ``transcendence'' its modern meaning, conjectures the transcendence of π and therefore the impossibility of squaring the circle.

TBC

We discuss shock reflection problem for compressible gas dynamics, von Neumann conjectures on transition between regular and Mach reflections. Then we describe recent results on existence and uniqueness of regular reflection solutions for potential flow equation, and discuss some techniques involved in the proof. The approach is to reduce the shock reflection problem to a free boundary problem, and prove existence and uniqueness by a version of method of continuity. This involves apriori estimates of solutions in the elliptic region of the equation of mixed type, with ellipticity degenerating on some part of the boundary. For the proof of uniqueness, an important property of solutions is convexity of the free boundary. We will also discuss some open problems.

This talk is based on joint works with G.-Q. Chen and W. Xiang.

In the Boussinesq framework, velocity couples to density fluctuations whereas in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, the velocity field is coupled to the magnetic field. Both systems support waves (inertia-gravity in the presence of rotation, or Alfvén), with anisotropic dispersion relations. What kind of turbulence regimes result from the interactions between waves and nonlinear eddies in such flows? And what is delimiting these regimes?

I shall sketch the phenomenological framework for rotating stratified turbulence within which one is led to scaling laws in terms of the Froude number, Fr=U/[LN], which measures the relative celerity of gravity waves and nonlinear eddies, with U and L characteristic velocity and length scale, and N the Brunt-V\"ais\"al\"a frequency. These laws apply to the mixing efficiency of such flows, indicating the relative roles of the buoyancy flux due to the waves, and of the measured kinetic and potential energy dissipation rates. Various measures of mixing are found to follow power laws in terms of the Froude number, and may differ for the three regimes that can be identified, namely the wave-dominated, wave-eddy balance and eddy-dominated domains [1]. In particular, in the intermediate regime, the effective dissipation varies linearly with Fr, in agreement with simple wave-turbulence arguments. This analysis is inspired by and corroborates results from a large parametric study using direct numerical simulations (DNS) on grids of 1024^3 points, as well as from atmospheric and oceanic observations.

Such scaling laws can be related to previous DNS results concerning the existence for the energy of bi-directional constant-flux cascades to both the small scales and to the large scales, due to the presence of rotation in such flows, as measured for example in the ocean. These dual energy cascades lead to an alteration, and a decrease, of the mixing and available energy to be dissipated in the small scales [2]. Some perspectives might also be given at the end of the talk.

[1] A. Pouquet, D. Rosenberg, R. Marino & C. Herbert, Scaling laws for mixing and dissipation in unforced rotating stratified turbulence. J. Fluid Mechanics 844, 519, 2018.
[2] R. Marino, A. Pouquet & D. Rosenberg, Resolving the paradox of oceanic large-scale balance and small-scale mixing. Physical Review Letters 114, 114504, 2015.

Motivic homotopy theory gives a way of viewing algebraic varieties and topological spaces as objects in the same category, where homotopies are parametrised  by the affine line.  In particular, there is a notion of $\mathbb A^1$ contractible varieties.  Affine spaces are $\mathbb A^1$ contractible by definition.  The Koras-Russell threefold KR defined by the equation $x + x^2y + z^2 + t^3 = 0$ in $\mathbb A^4$ is the first nontrivial example of an $\mathbb A^1$ contractible smooth affine variety.  We will discuss this example in some detail, and speculate on whether one can use motivic homotopy theory to distinguish between KR and $\mathbb A^3$.

The tree amplituhedron A(n, k, m) is a geometric object generalizing the positive Grassmannian, which was introduced by Arkani-Hamed and Trnka in 2013 in order to give a geometric basis for the computation of scattering amplitudes in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. I will give a gentle introduction to the amplituhedron, and then describe what it looks like in various special cases. For example, one can use the theory of sign variation and matroids to show that the amplituhedron A(n, k, 1) can be identified with the complex of bounded faces of a cyclic hyperplane arrangement. I will also present some conjectures relating the amplituhedron A(n, k, m) to combinatorial objects such as non-intersecting lattice paths and plane partitions. This is joint work with Steven Karp, and part of it is additionally joint work with Yan Zhang.

As we have learned over the last 10 years, many exact results for various observables in three-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric theories can be extracted from the computation of "supersymmetric partition functions" on curved three-manifold M_3, for instance on M_3= S^3 the three-sphere. Typically, such computations must be carried anew for each M_3 one might want to consider, and the technical difficulties mounts as the topology of M_3 gets more involved. In this talk, I will explain a different approach that allows us to compute the partition function on "almost" any half-BPS geometry. The basic idea is to relate different topologies by the insertion of certain half-BPS line defects, the "geometry-changing line operators." I will also explain how our formalism can be related to the Beem-Dimofte-Pasquetti holomorphic blocks. [Talk based on a paper to appear in a week, with Heeyeon Kim and Brian Willett.]
 

Poor economies not only produce less; they typically produce things that involve fewer inputs and fewer intermediate steps. Yet the supply chains of poor countries face more frequent disruptions - delivery failures, faulty parts, delays, power outages, theft, government failures - that systematically thwart the production process.

To understand how these disruptions affect economic development, we model an evolving input-output network in which disruptions spread contagiously among optimizing agents. The key finding is that a poverty trap can emerge: agents adapt to frequent disruptions by producing simpler, less valuable goods, yet disruptions persist. Growing out of poverty requires that agents invest in buffers to disruptions. These buffers rise and then fall as the economy produces more complex goods, a prediction consistent with global patterns of input inventories. Large jumps in economic complexity can backfire. This result suggests why "big push" policies can fail, and it underscores the importance of reliability and of gradual increases in technological complexity.

The World population is growing at about 80 million per year.  As time goes by, there is necessarily less space per person. Perhaps this is why the scientific community seems to be obsessed with folding things.  In this lecture Dick James presents a mathematical approach to “rigid folding” inspired by the way atomistic structures form naturally - their features at a molecular level imply desirable features for macroscopic structures as well, especially 4D structures.  Origami structures even suggest an unusual way to look at the Periodic Table.

Richard D. James is Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota.

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The Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures are generously supported by XTX Markets.

Over 50 years ago, Bondi, Sachs, Newman, Penrose and others laid down foundations for the theory of gravitational waves in full non-linear general relativity. In particular, numerical simulations of binary mergers used in the recent discovery of gravitational waves are based on this theory. However, over the last 2-3 decades, observations have also revealed that the universe is accelerating in a manner consistent with the presence of a positive cosmological constant $\Lambda$. Surprisingly, it turns out that even the basic notions of the prevailing theory of gravitational waves --the Bondi news, the radiation field, the Bondi-Sachs 4-momentum-- do not easily generalize to this context, {\it no matter how small $\Lambda$ is.} Even in the weak field limit, it took a hundred years to find an appropriate generalization of Einstein's celebrated quadrupole formula to accommodate a positive cosmological constant. I will summarize the main issues and then sketch the current state of the art.
 

I am going to report on some developments in regularity theory of nonlinear, degenerate equations, with special emphasis on estimates involving linear and nonlinear potentials. I will cover three main cases: degenerate nonlinear equations, systems, non-uniformly elliptic operators.