One of the most successful methods in topological data analysis (TDA) is persistent homology, which associates a one-parameter family of spaces to a data set, and gives a summary — an invariant called "barcode" — of how topological features, such as the number of components, holes, or voids evolve across the parameter space. In many applications one might wish to associate a multiparameter family of spaces to a data set. There is no generalisation of the barcode to the multiparameter case, and finding algebraic invariants that are suitable for applications is one of the biggest challenges in TDA.

The use of persistent homology in applications is justified by the validity of certain stability results. At the core of such results is a notion of distance between the invariants that one associates to data sets. While such distances are well-understood in the one-parameter case, the study of distances for multiparameter persistence modules is more challenging, as they rely on a choice of suitable invariant.

In this talk I will first give a brief introduction to multiparameter persistent homology. I will then present a general framework to study stability questions in multiparameter persistence: I will discuss which properties we would like invariants to satisfy, present different ways to associate distances to such invariants, and finally illustrate how this framework can be used to derive new stability results. No prior knowledge on the subject is assumed.

The talk is based on joint work with Barbara Giunti, John Nolan and Lukas Waas. 

A topology optimization problem for Stokes flow finds the optimal material distribution of a Stokes fluid that minimizes the fluid’s power dissipation under a volume constraint. In 2003, T. Borrvall and J. Petersson [1] formulated a nonconvex optimization problem for this objective. They proved the existence of minimizers in the infinite-dimensional setting and showed that a suitably chosen finite element method will converge in a weak(-*) sense to an unspecified solution. In this talk, we will extend and refine their numerical analysis. We will show that there exist finite element functions, satisfying the necessary first-order conditions of optimality, that converge strongly to each isolated local minimizer of the problem.

[1] T. Borrvall, J. Petersson, Topology optimization of fluids in Stokes flow, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids 41 (1) (2003) 77–107. doi:10.1002/fld.426.

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We study the model of randomly perturbed dense graphs, which is the union of any $n$-vertex graph $G_\alpha$ with minimum degree at least $\alpha n$ and the binomial random graph $G(n,p)$. In this talk, we shall examine the following central question in this area: to determine when $G_\alpha \cup G(n,p)$ contains $H$-factors, i.e. spanning subgraphs consisting of vertex disjoint copies of the graph $H$. We offer several new sharp and stability results.
This is joint work with Julia Böttcher, Olaf Parczyk, and Jozef Skokan.

 Given a solution of the Einstein equations, a fundamental question is whether one can extend the solution or whether the solution is maximal. If the solution is inextendible in a certain regularity class due to the geometry becoming singular, a further question is whether the strength of the singularity is such that it terminates classical time-evolution. The latter question, as will be explained in the talk, is intimately tied to the strong cosmic censorship conjecture in general relativity which states in the language of partial differential equations that global uniqueness holds generically for the initial value problem for the Einstein equations. I will then focus in the talk on recent results showing the locally Lipschitz inextendibility of FLRW models with particle horizons and spherically symmetric weak null singularities. The latter in particular apply to the spherically symmetric spacetimes constructed by Luk and Oh, improving their C^2-formulation of strong cosmic censorship to a locally Lipschitz formulation.

How to calculate the minimal number of summands of a nonzero polynomial in a given polynomial ideal? In this talk, we first discuss the roots of this question in computational algebra. Afterwards, we switch to the viewpoint of a commutative algebraist. In particular, we see that classical tools from this field, such as primary decomposition or the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity, fail to provide a solution to this problem. Finally, we discuss a concrete example: A standard determinantal ideal generated by $t$-minors does not contain any polynomials with fewer than $t!/2$ terms.