Past

This talk will summarize some of the problems and conjectures that I haven't managed to solve (although I have tried to) while spending my three years in this job. It will cover the areas of group theory, representation theory, both of general finite groups and of symmetric groups, and fusion systems.

In joint work with Tim Perutz, we give a complete characterization of the Fukaya category of the punctured torus, denoted by $Fuk(T_0)$. This, in particular, means that one can write down an explicit minimal model for $Fuk(T_0)$ in the form of an A-infinity algebra, denoted by A, and classify A-infinity structures on the relevant algebra. A result that we will discuss is that no associative algebra is quasi-equivalent to the model A of the Fukaya category of the punctured torus, i.e., A is non-formal. $Fuk(T_0)$ will be connected to many topics of interest: 1) It is the boundary category that we associate to a 3-manifold with torus boundary in our extension of Heegaard Floer theory to manifolds with boundary, 2) It is quasi-equivalent to the category of perfect complexes on an irreducible rational curve with a double point, an instance of homological mirror symmetry.

(Note change in time and location)

The purpose of this talk is to give an introduction to the theory and

practice of integer factorization. More precisely, I plan to talk about the

p-1 method, the elliptic curve method, the quadratic sieve, and if time

permits the number field sieve.

Bacteria are ubiquitous on Earth and perform many vital roles in addition to being responsible for a variety of diseases. Locomotion allows the bacterium to explore the environment to find nutrient-rich locations and is also crucial in the formation of large colonies, known as biofilms, on solid surfaces immersed in the fluid. Many bacteria swim by turning corkscrew-shaped flagella. This can be studied computationally by considering hydrodynamic forces acting on the bacterium as the flagellum rotates. Using a boundary element method to solve the Stokes flow equations, it is found that details of the shape of the cell and flagellum affect both swimming efficiency and attraction of the swimmer towards flat no-slip surfaces. For example, simulations show that relatively small changes in cell elongation or flagellum length could make the difference between an affinity for swimming near surfaces and a repulsion. A new model is introduced for considering elastic behaviour in the bacterial hook that links the flagellum to the motor in the cell body. This model, based on Kirchhoff rod theory, predicts upper and lower bounds on the hook stiffness for effective swimming.

There have been significant progress in the calculation of scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM. In this talk I will consider `form factors', which are defined not only with on-shell asymptotic states but also with one off-shell operator inserted. Such quantities are in some sense the hybrid of on-shell quantities (such

as scattering amplitudes) and off-shell quantities (such as correlation functions). We will see that form factors inherit many nice properties of scattering amplitudes, in particular we will consider their supersymmetrization and the dual picture.

In many applications it is of interest to compute minimizers of

a functional I(u) which is the of the form $J(u)=\Phi(u)+R(u)$,

with $R(u)$ quadratic. We describe a stochastic algorithm for

this problem which avoids explicit computation of gradients of $\Phi$;

it requires only the ability to sample from a Gaussian measure

with Cameron-Martin norm squared equal to $R(u)$, and the ability

to evaluate $\Phi$. We show that, in an appropriate parameter limit,

a piecewise linear interpolant of the algorithm converges weakly to a noisy

gradient flow. \\

Joint work with Natesh Pillai (Harvard) and Alex Thiery (Warwick).

In the 1990's Haagerup discovered a new subfactor, and hence a new topological quantum field theory, that has so far proved inaccessible by the methods of quantum groups and conformal field theory. It was the subfactor of smallest index beyond 4. This led to a classification project-classify all subfactors to as large an index as possible. So far we have gone as far as index 5. It is known that at index 6 wildness phenomena occur which preclude a simple listing of all subfactors of that index. It is possible that wildness occurs at a smaller index value, the main candidate being approximately 5.236.

Abstract: In the 1990's Haagerup discovered a new subfactor, and hence a new topological quantum field theory, that has so far proved inaccessible by the methods of quantum groups and conformal field theory. It was the subfactor of smallest index beyond 4. This led to a classification project-classify all subfactors to as large an index as possible. So far we have gone as far as index 5. It is known that at index 6 wildness phenomena occur which preclude a simple listing of all subfactors of that index. It is possible that wildness occurs at a smaller index value, the main candidate being approximately 5.236.

The moduli space of cubic surfaces is known to be isomorphic to a quotient of the unit ball in C^4 by an arithmetic

group. We review this construction, then explain how to construct

an explicit inverse to the period map by using suitable theta functions. This gives a new proof of the isomorphism between the two spaces.

Duality methods can be very powerful tools for the analysis of stochastic

processes. However, there seems to be no general theory available

yet. In this talk, I will discuss and aim to clarify various notions

of duality, give some recent rather striking examples (applied to

stochastic PDEs, interacting particle systems and combinatorial stochastic

processes)

and try to give some systematic insight into the type of questions

that can in principle be tackled. Finally, I will try to provide you

with some intuition for this fascinating technique.

Given a deterministically time-changed Brownian motion Z starting from 1, whose time-change V (t) satisfies $V (t) > t$ for all $t>=0$, we perform an explicit construction of a process X which is Brownian motion in its own filtration and that hits zero for the first time at V (s), where $s:= inf {t > 0 : Z_t = 0}$. We also provide the semimartingale decomposition of $X >$ under

the filtration jointly generated by X and Z. Our construction relies on a combination of enlargement of filtration and filtering techniques. The resulting process X may be viewed as the analogue of a 3-dimensional Bessel bridge starting from 1 at time 0 and ending at 0 at the random time $V (s)$.

We call this a dynamic Bessel bridge since V(s) is not known in advance. Our study is motivated by insider trading models with default risk.(this is a joint work with Luciano Campi and Umut Cetin)

We will give a quick and dirty introduction to Gromov-Witten theory and discuss some integrality properties of GW invariants. We will start by briefly recalling some basic properties of the Deligne Mumford moduli space of curves. We will then try to define GW invariants using both algebraic and symplectic geometry (both definitions will be rather sloppy, but hopefully the basic idea will become visible), talk a bit about the axiomatic definition due to to Kontsevich and Manin, and discuss some applications like quantum cohomology. Finally, we will talk a bit about integrality and the Gopakumar-Vafa conjecture. Just as a word of warning: this talk is intended as an introduction to the

subject and should give an overview, so we will perhaps be a bit sloppy here and there...

Emma Warneford: "Formation of Zonal Jets and the Quasigeostrophic Theory of the Thermodynamic Shallow Water Equations"

Georgios Anastasiades: "Quantile forecasting of wind power using variability indices"

After Sela and Kharlampovich-Myasnikov independently proved that non abelian free groups share the same common theory model theoretic interest for the subject arose.

 In this talk I will present a survey of results around this theory starting with basic model theoretic properties mostly coming from the connectedness of the free group (Poizat).

Then I will sketch our proof with C.Perin for the homogeneity of non abelian free groups and I will give several applications, the most important being the description of forking independence.

 In the last part I will discuss a list of open problems, that fit in the context of geometric stability theory, together with some ideas/partial answers to them.

there will be no seminar in this week.

The first half of this seminar will discuss the hedging problem faced by a large sports betting agent who has to risk-manage an unwanted position in a bet on the simultaneous outcome of multiple football matches, by trading in moderately liquid simple bets on individual results. The resulting mathematical framework is that of a coupled system of multi-dimensional HJB equations.

This leads to the wider question of the numerical approximation of such problems. Dynamic programming with PDEs, while very accurate in low dimensions, becomes practically intractable as the dimensionality increases. Monte Carlo methods, while robust for computing linear expectations in high dimensions, are not per se well suited to dynamic programming. This leaves high-dimensional stochastic control problems to be considered computationally infeasible in general.

In the second half of the seminar, we will outline ongoing work in this area by sparse grid techniques and asymptotic expansions, the former exploiting smoothness of the value function, the latter a fast decay in the importance of principal components. We hope to instigate a discussion of other possible approaches including e.g. BSDEs.

15th Biennial OXFORD / CAMBRIDGE MEETING

PROGRAMME FOR THE

‘WOOLLY OWL TROPHY’

Invited Judges

John Harper

(Victoria University of Wellington, NZ)

Arash Yavari

(Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA)

Sharon Stephen

(University of Birmingham, UK)

10:45 Morning Coffee The Maths Inst Common Room

... for Torelli groups of surfaces.