Tue, 01 Mar 2016

15:00 - 16:00
L1

A "Simple" Answer to a "Not Quite Simple" Problem - The Prequel to A "Simple" Question

Kesavan Thanagopal
(Oxford University)
Abstract

In this seminar, I aim to go through the "main prequel" of the talk I gave during the first Advanced Class of this term, and provide a "simple" answer to Abraham Robinson's original question that he posed in 1973 regarding the (un)decidability of finitely generated extensions of undecidable fields. I will provide a quick introduction to, and some classical results from, the mathematical discipline of Field Arithmetic, and using these results show that one can construct undecidable (large) fields that have finitely generated extensions which are decidable. Of course, as I had mentioned in the advanced class, a counterexample to the "simple" question that I have been working on unfortunately does not seem to lie within this class of large fields. If time permits, I will provide a sneak peek into the possible "sequel" by briefly talking about what the main issue of solving the "simple" problem is, and how a "hide-and-seek" method might come in handy in tackling that problem.

Search for correlations between the arrival directions of IceCube neutrino events and ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays detected by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the Telescope Array
Felde, J Filimonov, K Finley, C Fischer-Wasels, T Flis, S Foesig, C Fuchs, T Gaisser, T Gaior, R Gallagher, J Gerhardt, L Ghorbani, K Gier, D Gladstone, L Glagla, M Gluesenkamp, T Goldschmidt, A Golup, G Gonzalez, J Gora, D Grant, D Griffith, Z Gross, A Ha, C Haack, C Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics volume 2016 issue 1 037-037 (20 Jan 2016)
High-energy neutrino follow-up search of gravitational wave event GW150914 with ANTARES and IceCube
Sarkar, S Physical Review D volume 93 issue 12 122010 (01 Jun 2016)
Fri, 04 Mar 2016

15:30 - 16:30
L2

Hurricanes and Climate Change

Professor Kerry Emanuel
(MIT)
Abstract

In his talk, Kerry will explore the pressing practical problem of how hurricane activity will respond to global warming, and how hurricanes could in turn be influencing the atmosphere and ocean

Wed, 02 Mar 2016

16:00 - 17:00
C3

Group Cohomology and Quasi-Isometries

Alex Margolis
(Oxford)
Abstract

I will present a basic overview of finiteness conditions, group cohomology, and related quasi-isometry invariance results. In particular, I will show that if a group satisfies certain finiteness conditions, group cohomology with group ring coefficients encodes some structure of the `homology at infinity' of a group. This is seen for hyperbolic groups in the work of Bestvina-Mess, which relates the group cohomology to the Čech cohomology of the boundary.

Tue, 03 May 2016
14:30
L3

Optimal preconditioners for systems defined by functions of Toeplitz matrices

Sean Hon
(University of Oxford)
Abstract

We propose several optimal preconditioners for systems defined by some functions $g$ of Toeplitz matrices $T_n$. In this paper we are interested in solving $g(T_n)x=b$ by the preconditioned conjugate method or the preconditioned minimal residual method, namely in the cases when $g(T_n)$ are the analytic functions $e^{T_n}$, $\sin{T_n}$ and $\cos{T_n}$. Numerical results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed preconditioners.

Wed, 24 Feb 2016

16:00 - 17:00
C3

CAT(0) Boundaries

Robert Kropholler
(Oxford University)
Abstract

I will talk about the boundaries of CAT(0) groups giving definitions, some examples and will state some theorems. I may even prove something if there is time. 

Subscribe to