Thu, 23 Oct 2025

12:00 - 13:00
L3

Master Stability for Traveling Waves on Networks

Stefan Ruschel
(University of Leeds)
Abstract

 I will present a new framework for determining effectively the spectrum and stability of traveling waves on networks with symmetries, such as rings and lattices, by computing master stability curves (MSCs). Unlike traditional methods, MSCs are independent of system size and can be readily used to assess wave destabilization and multi-stability in small and large networks.

 

 

 

Further Information

Stefan Ruschel’s research focuses on dynamical systems theory and its applications to nonlinear optics and mathematical biology, among others. He specialises in analytical and numerical methods for delay differential and functional differential equations when the delay is large compared to other time scales of the system. His specific contributions include work on the fixed point spectrum for large delay, as well as the characterisation of slowly oscillating solutions such as travelling pulses and waves.

His future research is dedicated to applying these techniques to delay and lattice dynamical systems arising from coupled excitable and coupled bi-stable systems in laser dynamics and neuroscience, where such solutions play an important role in data transmission and neural signal propagation.

He is currently a research fellow at the University of Leeds (UK), funded by UKRI in recognition of a Horizon Europe MSCA award post-Brexit.

Thu, 16 Oct 2025

12:00 - 13:00
L3

Think Global, Act Local: A Mathematician's Guide to Inducing Localised Patterns

Dan J. Hill
(University of Oxford)
Abstract
The existence of localised two-dimensional patterns has been observed and studied in numerous experiments and simulations: ranging from optical solitons, to patches of desert vegetation, to fluid convection. And yet, our mathematical understanding of these emerging structures remains extremely limited beyond one-dimensional examples.
 
In this talk I will discuss how adding a compact region of spatial heterogeneity to a PDE model can not only induce the emergence of fully localised 2D patterns, but also allows us to rigorously prove and characterise their bifurcation. The idea is inspired by experimental and numerical studies of magnetic fluids and tornados, where our compact heterogeneity corresponds to a local spike in the magnetic field and temperature gradient, respectively. In particular, we obtain local bifurcation results for fully localised patterns both with and without radial or dihedral symmetry, and rigorously continue these solutions to large amplitude. Notably, the initial bifurcating solution (which can be stable at bifurcation) varies between a radially-symmetric spot and a 'dipole' solution as the width of the spatial heterogeneity increases. 
 
This work is in collaboration with David J.B. Lloyd and Matthew R. Turner (both University of Surrey).
 
 
Further Information

Dan is a recently appointed Hooke Fellow within OCIAM. His research focus is on pattern formation and the emergence of localised states in PDE models, with an emphasis on using polar coordinate systems to understand nonlinear behaviour in higher spatial dimensions. He received his MMath and PhD from the University of Surrey, with a thesis on the existence of localised spikes on the surface of a ferrofluid, and previously held postdoctoral positions at Saarland University, including an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship. www.danjhill.com

Thu, 12 Jun 2025
17:00
L3

Hrushovski constructions in ordered fields

Yilong Zhang
(Universitat Bonn)
Abstract
Hrushovski constructions are a variant of amalgamation methods. They were invented to construct new examples of strongly minimal theories. The method was later adapted to expansions of fields, including colored fields and powered fields. In this talk, I will present my attempt to apply Hrushovski constructions to ordered fields. I will construct an expansion of RCF by a dense multiplicative subgroup (green points). Hrushovski constructions induce a back-and-forth system, enabling us to study the dp-rank and the open core of this structure. I will also introduce my recent progress on powered fields, an expansion of RCF by "power functions" on the unit circle, and my plan to axiomatize expansions of the real field using Hrushovski constructions.
Thu, 22 May 2025

17:00 - 18:00
L3

Axioms of Quantum Mechanics in the light of Continuous Model Theory​

Boris Zilber
(University of Oxford)
Abstract

I am going to start by reviewing axioms of quantum mechanics, which in fact give a description of a Hilbert space. I will argue that the language that Dirac and his followers developed is that of continuous logic and the form of axiomatisation is that of "algebraic logic" in the sense of A. Tarski's cylindric algebras. In fact, Hilbert spaces can be seen as a continuous model theory version of cylindric algebras.

Fri, 02 May 2025

14:00 - 15:00
L3

Some theoretical results about responses to inputs and transients in systems biology

Prof Eduardo Sontag
(Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and of Bioengineering Northeastern University )
Abstract

This talk will focus on systems-theoretic and control theory tools that help characterize the responses of nonlinear systems to external inputs, with an emphasis on how network structure “motifs” introduce constraints on finite-time, transient behaviors.  Of interest are qualitative features that are unique to nonlinear systems, such as non-harmonic responses to periodic inputs or the invariance to input symmetries. These properties play a key role as tools for model discrimination and reverse engineering in systems biology, as well as in characterizing robustness to disturbances. Our research has been largely motivated by biological problems at all scales, from the molecular (e.g., extracellular ligands affecting signaling and gene networks), to cell populations (e.g., resistance to chemotherapy due to systemic interactions between the immune system and tumors; drug-induced mutations; sensed external molecules triggering activations of specific neurons in worms), to interactions of individuals (e.g., periodic or single-shot non-pharmaceutical “social distancing'” interventions for epidemic control). Subject to time constraints, we'll briefly discuss some of these applications.

Thu, 19 Jun 2025
17:00
L3

Tame valued fields, partial quantifier elimination, and NIP transfer

Sylvy Anscombe
(Université Paris Cité)
Abstract
Work of Kuhlmann and coauthors has established AKE principles for tame and separably tame valued fields, extending for example the work of Delon on the narrower class of algebraically (or separable-algebraically) maximal Kaplansky valued fields. These principles, and their underlying methods, have had striking applications, for example to existential theories of henselian valued fields, the transfer of NIP from residue field to valued field, and the recent work of Jahnke and Kartas on theories of perfectoid fields. The "Generalized Stability Theorem" is even an ingredient in Temkin's inseparable local uniformization. In this talk I want to explain some extensions of the known AKE principles, and related partial results on relative quantifier elimination, all in various special cases. This includes work joint with Boissonneau, and work of Soto Moreno.
Thu, 05 Jun 2025
17:00
L3

Globally valued fields, adelic curves and Siu inequality

Antoine Sedillot
(Universität Regensburg)
Abstract

In this talk, I will introduce the frameworks of globally valued fields (Ben Yaacov-Hrushovski) and adelic curves (Chen-Moriwaki). Both of these frameworks aim at understanding the arithmetic of fields sharing common features with global fields. A lot of examples fit in this scope (e.g. global fields, finitely generated extension of the prime fields, fields of meromorphic functions) and we will try to describe some of them.

Although globally valued fields and adelic curves came from different motivations and might seem quite different, they are related (and even essentially equivalent). This relation opens the door for new methods in the study of global arithmetic. As an application, we will sketch the proof of an arithmetic analogue of Siu inequality in algebraic geometry (a fundamental tool to detect the existence of global sections of line bundles in birational geometry). This is a joint work with Michał Szachniewicz.

Thu, 29 May 2025
17:00
L3

The hierarchy of consistency strengths for membership in a computably enumerable set

Joel David Hamkins
(University of Notre Dame)
Abstract
For a given computably enumerable set W, consider the spectrum of assertions of the form n ∈ W. If W is c.e. but not computably decidable, it is easy to see that many of these statements will be independent of PA, for otherwise we could decide W by searching for proofs of n ∉ W. In this work, we investigate the possible hierarchies of consistency strengths that arise. For example, there is a c.e. set Q for which the consistency strengths of the assertions n ∈ Q are linearly ordered like the rational line. More generally, I shall prove that every computable preorder relation on the natural numbers is realized exactly as the hierarchy of consistency strength for the membership statements n∈W of some computably enumerable set W. After this, we shall consider the c.e. preorder relations. This is joint work with Atticus Stonestrom.
Thu, 15 May 2025
17:00
L3

Feferman's Completeness Theorem

Michael Rathjen
(University of Leeds)
Abstract

Feferman proved in 1962 that any arithmetical theorem is a consequence of a suitable transfinite iteration of uniform reflections. This result is commonly known as Feferman's completeness theorem. The talk aims to give one or two new proofs of Feferman's completeness theorem that, we hope, shed new light on this mysterious and often overlooked result.

Moreover, one of the proofs furnishes sharp bounds on the order types of well-orders necessary to attain completeness.

(This is joint work with Fedor Pakhomov and Dino Rossegger.)

Thu, 08 May 2025
17:00
L3

The tilting equivalence as a bi-interpretation

Thomas Scanlon
(UC Berkeley)
Abstract

In the theory of perfectoid fields, the tilting operation takes a perfectoid field K (a densely normed complete field of positive residue characteristic p for which the map which sends x to its p-th power is surjective as a self-map on O/pO where O is the ring of integers) to its tilt, which is computed as the limit in the category of multiplicative monoids of K under repeated application of the map sending x to its p-th power, and then a natural normed field structure is constructed. It may happen that two non-isomorphic perfectoid fields have isomorphic tilts. The family of characteristic zero untilts of a complete nontrivially normed complete perfect field of positive characteristic are parameterized by the Fargues-Fontaine curve.

Taking into account these parameters, we show that this correspondence between perfectoid fields of mixed characteristic and their tilts may be regarded as a quantifier-free bi-interpretation in continuous logic. The existence of this bi-interpretation allows for some soft proofs of some features of tilting such as the Fontaine-Wintenberger theorem that a perfectoid field and its tilt have isomorphic absolute Galois groups, an approximation lemma for the tilts of definable sets, and identifications of adic spaces.

This is a report on (rather old, mostly from 2016/7) joint work with Silvain Rideau-Kikuchi and Pierre Simon available at https://arxiv.org/html/2505.01321v1 .

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