Past

We discuss shock reflection problem for compressible gas dynamics, various patterns of reflected shocks, and von Neumann conjectures on transition between regular and Mach reflections. Then

we will talk about recent results on existence of regular reflection solutions for potential flow equation up to the detachment angle, and discuss some techniques. The approach is to reduce the shock

reflection problem to a free boundary problem for a nonlinear equation of mixed elliptic-hyperbolic type. Open problems will also be discussed. The talk is based on the joint work with Gui-Qiang Chen.

The four topics are:

1. Thermal interface materials

2. Low temperature joining technology

3. Nano Ag materials

4. Status of PV technology

Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems arise in many applications. The widely known examples are aeroelasticity and biofluids.

In biofluidic applications, such as, e.g., the study of interaction between blood flow and cardiovascular tissue, the coupling between the fluid and the

relatively light structure is {highly nonlinear} because the density of the structure and the density of the fluid are roughly the same.

In such problems, the geometric nonlinearities of the fluid-structure interface

and the significant exchange in the energy between a moving fluid and a structure

require sophisticated ideas for the study of their solutions.

In the blood flow application, the problems are further exacerbated by the fact that the walls of major arteries are composed of several layers, each with

different mechanical characteristics.

No results exist so far that analyze solutions to fluid-structure interaction problems in which the structure is composed of several different layers.

In this talk we make a first step in this direction by presenting a program to study the {\bf existence and numerical simulation} of solutions

for a class of problems

describing the interaction between a multi-layered, composite structure, and the flow of an incompressible, viscous fluid,

giving rise to a fully coupled, {\bf nonlinear moving boundary, fluid-multi-structure interaction problem.}

A stable, modular, loosely coupled scheme will be presented, and an existence proof

showing the convergence of the numerical scheme to a weak solution to the fully nonlinear FSI problem will be discussed.

Our results reveal a new physical regularizing mechanism in

FSI problems: the inertia of the fluid-structure interface regularizes the evolution of the FSI solution.

All theoretical results will be illustrated with numerical examples.

This is a joint work with Boris Muha (University of Zagreb, Croatia, and with Martina Bukac, University of Pittsburgh and Notre Dame University).

Finite sharply 2-transitive groups were classified by Zassenhaus in the 1930's. It has been an open question whether infinite sharply 2-transitive group always contain a regular normal subgroup. In joint work with Rips and Segev we show that this is not the case.

Spectral networks are certain collections of paths on a Riemann surface, introduced by Gaiotto, Moore, and Neitzke to study BPS states in certain N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories. They are interesting geometric objects in their own right, with a number of mathematical applications. In this talk I will give an introduction to what a spectral network is, and describe the "abelianization map" which, given a spectral network, produces nice "spectral coordinates" on the appropriate moduli space of flat connections. I will show that coordinates obtained in this way include a variety of previously known special cases (Fock-Goncharov coordinates and Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates), and mention at least one reason why generalising them in this way is of interest.

If X/F is a smooth and proper variety over a global function field of

characteristic p, then for all l different from p the co-ordinate ring of the l-adic

unipotent fundamental group is a Galois representation, which is unramified at all

places of good reduction. In this talk, I will ask the question of what the correct

p-adic analogue of this is, by spreading out over a smooth model for C and proving a

version of the homotopy exact sequence associated to a fibration. There is also a

version for path torsors, which enables me to define an function field analogue of

the global period map used by Minhyong Kim to study rational points.

Despite the theoretical and empirical criticisms of the M-V and CAPM, they are found virtually in all curriculums. Why?

The talk is on impacts, penetrations and lift-offs involving bodies and fluids, with applications that range from aircraft and ship safety and our tiny everyday scales of splashing and washing, up to surface movements on Mars. Several studies over recent years have addressed different aspects of air-water effects and fluid-body interplay theoretically. Nonlinear interactions and evolutions are key here and these are to be considered in the presentation. Connections with experiments will also be described.

Factorization is a property of global objects that can be built up from local data. In the first half, we introduce the concept of factorization spaces, focusing on two examples relevant for the Geometric Langlands programme: the affine Grassmannian and jet spaces.

In the second half, factorization algebras will be defined including a discussion of how factorization spaces and commutative algebras give rise to examples. Finally, chiral homology is defined as a way to give global invariants of such objects.

Many successful methods in image processing and computer vision involve

parabolic and elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs). Thus, there

is a growing demand for simple and highly efficient numerical algorithms

that work for a broad class of problems. Moreover, these methods should

also be well-suited for low-cost parallel hardware such as GPUs.

In this talk we show that two of the simplest methods for the numerical

analysis of PDEs can lead to remarkably efficient algorithms when they

are only slightly modified: To this end, we consider cyclic variants of

the explicit finite difference scheme for approximating parabolic problems,

and of the Jacobi overrelaxation method for solving systems of linear

equations.

Although cyclic algorithms have been around in the numerical analysis

community for a long time, they have never been very popular for a number

of reasons. We argue that most of these reasons have become obsolete and

that cyclic methods ideally satisfy the needs of modern image processing

applications. Interestingly this transfer of knowledge is not a one-way

road from numerical analysis to image analysis: By considering a

factorisation of general smoothing filters, we introduce novel, signal

processing based ways of deriving cycle parameters. They lead to hitherto

unexplored methods with alternative parameter cycles. These methods offer

better smoothing properties than classical numerical concepts such as

Super Time Stepping and the cyclic Richardson algorithm.

We present a number of prototypical applications that demonstrate the

wide applicability of our cyclic algorithms. They include isotropic

and anisotropic nonlinear diffusion processes, higher dimensional

variational problems, and higher order PDEs.

"Show that there is a function $f$ such that for any sequence $(x_1, x_2, \dots)$ we have $x_n = f(x_{n + 1}, x_{n + 2}, \dots)$ for all but finitely many $n$."

Fred Galvin. Problem 5348. The American Mathematical Monthly, 72(10):p. 1135, 1965.\\

This quote is one of the earliest examples of an infinite hat problem, although it's not phrased this way. A hat problem is a non-empty set of colours together with a directed graph, where the nodes correspond to "agents" or "players" and the edges determine what the players "see". The goal is to find a collective strategy for the players which ensures that no matter what "hats" (= colours) are placed on their heads, they will ensure that a "sufficient" amount guess correctly.\\

In this talk I will discuss hat problems on countable sets and show that in a non-transitive setting, the relationship between existence of infinitely-correct strategies and Ramsey properties of the graph breakdown, in the particular case of the parity game. I will then introduce some small cardinals (uncountable cardinals no larger than continuum) that will be useful in analysing the parity game. Finally, I will present some new results on the sigma-ideal of meagre sets of reals that arise from this analysis.

Let G be a finite group, p a prime and S a Sylow p-subgroup. The group G

is called p-nilpotent if S has a normal complement N in G, that is, G is

the semidirect product between S and N. The notion of p-nilpotency plays

an important role in finite group theory. For instance, Thompson's

criterion for p-nilpotency leads to the important structural result that

finite groups with fixed-point-free automorphisms are nilpotent.

By a classical result of Tate one can detect p-nilpotency using mod p

cohomology in dimension 1: the group G is p-nilpotent if and only if the

restriction map in cohomology from G to S is an isomorphism in dimension

1. In this talk we will discuss cohomological criteria for p-nilpotency by

Tate, and Atiyah/Quillen (using high-dimensional cohomology) from the

1960s and 1970s. Finally, we will discuss how one can extend Tate's

result to study p-solvable and more general finite groups.

In the Erdös-Rényi random graph process, starting from an empty graph, in each step a new random edge is added to the evolving graph. One of its most interesting features is the `percolation phase transition': as the ratio of the number of edges to vertices increases past a certain critical density, the global structure changes radically, from only small components to a single giant component plus small ones.


In this talk we consider Achlioptas processes, which have become a key example for random graph processes with dependencies between the edges. Starting from an empty graph these proceed as follows: in each step two potential edges are chosen uniformly at random, and using some rule one of them is selected and added to the evolving graph. We discuss why, for a large class of rules, the percolation phase transition is qualitatively comparable to the classical Erdös-Rényi process.


Based on joint work with Oliver Riordan.

Ever wondered how the log function in your code is computed? This talk, which was prepared for the 400th anniversary of Napier's development of logarithms, discusses the computation of reciprocals, exponentials and logs, and also my own work on some special functions which are important in Monte Carlo simulation.

The talk will give a definition of matrix geometries, which are

particular types of finite real spectral triple that are useful for

approximating manifolds. Examples include fuzzy spheres and also the

internal space of the standard model. If time permits, the relation of

matrix geometries with 2d state sum models will also be sketched.

One of the holy grails of material science is a complete characterization of ground states of material energies. Some materials have periodic ground states, others have quasi-periodic states, and yet others form amorphic, random structures. Knowing this structure is essential to determine the macroscopic material properties of the material. In theory the energy contains all the information needed to determine the structure of ground states, but in practice it is extremely hard to extract this information.

In this talk I will describe a model for which we recently managed to characterize the ground state in a very complete way. The energy describes the behaviour of diblock copolymers, polymers that consist of two parts that repel each other. At low temperature such polymers organize themselves in complex microstructures at microscopic scales.

We concentrate on a regime in which the two parts are of strongly different sizes. In this regime we can completely characterize ground states, and even show stability of the ground state to small energy perturbations.

This is work with David Bourne and Florian Theil.

We state a conjecture about the size of the intersection between a bounded-rank progression and a sphere, and we prove the first interesting case, a result of Chang. Hopefully the full conjecture will be obvious to somebody present.

We study infinite (random) systems of interacting particles living in a Euclidean space X and possessing internal parameter (spin) in R¹. Such systems are described by Gibbs measures on the space Γ(X,R¹) of marked configurations in X (with marks in R¹). For a class of pair interactions, we show the occurrence of phase transition, i.e. non-uniqueness of the corresponding Gibbs measure, in both 'quenched' and 'annealed' counterparts of the model.