Past

Digital trees is a general structure to manipulate sequences of characters. We propose a novel approach to the structure of digital trees.

It shades some new light on the profile of digital trees, and provides a unified explanation of the relationships between different kinds of digital trees. The idea relies on the distinction of nodes based on their type, i.e., the set of their children. Only two types happen to matter when studying the number of nodes lying at a specified level: the nodes with a full set of children which constitutes the core, and the nodes with a single child producing spaghetti-like trees hanging down the core. We will explain the distinction and its applications on a number of examples related to data structures such as the TST of Bentley and Sedgewick.

This is joint work with Luc Devroye.

The theory of Special Lagrangian (SL) submanifolds is the natural point of intersection between various classical (Lagrangian and volume-minimizing submanifolds) and contemporary (Mirror Symmetry and invariants of Calabi-Yau manifolds) topics. The key problem is how to characterize the compactified moduli space of SLs. Equivalently, to understand which SL singularities admits desingularizations. Our aim is to present some explicit examples, topological results and simple observations which shed some light on the nature and complexity of this problem, and which we expect will be a useful foundation for future progress in the field. This is joint work with M. Haskins (Imperial College), cfr. arXiv:math/0609352.

A central task in conservation biology is measuring, predicting, and preserving biological diversity as species face extinction. Dating back to 1992, phylogenetic diversity is a prominent notion for measuring the biodiversity of a collection of species. This talk gives a flavour of some the combinatorial and algorithmic problems and recent solutions associated with computing this measure. This is joint work with Magnus Bordewich (Durham University, UK) and Andreas Spillner (University of East Anglia, UK).

We show how renormalisation methods similar to the ones used by physicists to make sense of Feynman integrals can be implemented to make sense of sums on infinite cones. On the basis of joint work with D. Manchon, we also discuss multiple zeta functions which can be seen as sums on a specific class of infinite cones.

I will present a general formalism for understanding coloured operads of different flavours, such as cyclic operads, modular operads and topological field theories. The talk is based on arXiv:math/0701767.

The discrete structure of the ground states of a spin system is often neglected by averaging on a mesoscopic scale and thus capturing the main features of the model while simplifying its analysis. In many cases this procedure is not rigorous and not even well understood. In this talk we show that the coarse graining procedure for the XY (N-dimensional, possibly anysotropic) spin type model can be made rigorous by using Gamma-convergence. In the two-dimesional case we show how it is possible to address the same problem for a model with long-range interactions. Finally we discuss several possible developments and present some open problems.

Abstract: Following Donaldson's approach we compute the Calabi-Yau metric on quintics, a four-generation quotient, Schoen threefolds and quotients thereof. Using the explicit Calabi-Yau metric, we then compute eigenvalues and eigenmodes of the Laplace operator.

By classical results of Tarski and Artin-Schreier, the elementary theory of the field of real numbers can be axiomatized in purely Galois-theoretic terms by describing the absolute Galois group of the field. Using work of Ax-Kochen/Ershov and a p-adic analogue of the Artin-Schreier theory the same can be proved for the field $\mathbb{Q}_p$ of p-adic numbers and for very few other fields.

Replacing, however, the absolute Galois group of a field K by that of the rational function field $K(t)$ over $K$, one obtains a Galois-theoretic axiomatiozation of almost arbitrary perfect fields. This gives rise to a new approach to longstanding decidability questions for fields like

$F_p((t))$ or $C(t)$.

The Landscape problem in String Theory is the fact that there are apparently a great many possible vacua; each leading to a very different four dimensional world. I will give a survey of the space of possibilities and then argue that we may, after all, live in a naturally defined tip of the distribution.

I will address the usage of the elliptic reconstruction technique (ERT) in a posteriori error analysis for fully discrete schemes for parabolic partial differential equations. A posteriori error estimates are effective tools in error control and adaptivity and a mathematical rigorous derivation justifies and improves their use in practical implementations.

The flexibility of the ERT allows a virtually indiscriminate use of various parabolic PDE techniques such as energy methods, duality methods and heat-kernel estimates, as opposed to direct approaches which leave less maneuver room. Thanks to ERT parabolic stability techniques can be combined with different elliptic a posteriori error analysis techniques, such as residual or recovery estimators, to derive a posteriori error bounds. The method has the merit of unifying previously known approaches, as well as providing new ones and providing us with novel error bounds (e.g., pointwise norm error bounds for the heat equation). [These results are based on joint work with Ch. Makridakis and A. Demlow.]

Another feature, which I would like to highlight, of the ERT is its simplifying power. It allows us to derive estimates where the analysis would be very complicated otherwise. As an example, I will illustrate its use in the context of non-conforming methods, with a special eye on discontinuous Galerkin methods. [These are recent results obtained jointly with E. Georgoulis.]

We will prove an extended Poincaré - Hopf theorem, identifying several invariants of a manifold $M$. These are its Euler characteristic $\chi(M)$, the sum $\sum_{x_i} ind_V(x_i)$ of indices at zeroes of a vector field $V$ on $M$, the self-intersection number $\Delta \cap \Delta$ of the diagonal $\Delta \subset M \times M$ and finally the integral $\int_M e(TM)$ of the Euler class of the tangent bundle.