L3

In this talk I will discuss some features of interacting conformal higher spin theories in 2+1 dimensions. This is done in the context of Chern-Simons theory (giving e.g. the complete spin 2 covariant  spin 3 sector) and a higher spin coupled unfolded equation for the scalar singleton. One motivation for studying these theories is that their non-linear properties are rather poorly understood contrary to the situation for the Vasiliev type theory in this dimension which is under much better control. Another reason for the interest in these theories comes from AdS4/CFT3 and the possibility that Neumann/mixed bc for bulk higher spin fields may lead to conformal higher spin fields governed by Chern-Simons terms on the boundary. These theories generalise the spin 2 gauged BLG-ABJ(M)  theories found a few years ago to higher spins than 2.

Calabi-Yau spaces provide well-understood examples of supersymmetric vacua in supergravity. The supersymmetry conditions on such spaces can be rephrased as the existence and integrability of a particular geometric structure. When fluxes are allowed, the conditions are more complicated and the analogue of the geometric structure is not well understood.
In this talk, I will review work that defines the analogue of Calabi-Yau geometry for generic D=4, N=2 supergravity backgrounds. The geometry is characterised by a pair of structures in generalised geometry, where supersymmetry is equivalent to integrability of the structures. I will also discuss the extension AdS backgrounds, where deformations of these geometric structures correspond to exactly marginal deformations of the dual field theories.

M5-branes on 4-manifolds M_4 realized as co-associatives in G_2 give rise to 2d (0,2) superconformal theories. In this talk I will propose a duality between these 2d (0,2) theories and 4d topological theories, which are sigma-models from M_4 into the Nahm moduli space. 

I will review the recently exposed connection between N=2 superconformal field theories in four dimensions and vertex operator algebras (VOAs). I will outline some general features of the VOAs that arise in this manner and describe the manner in which they reflect four-dimensional operations such as gauging and Higgsing. Time permitting, I will also touch on the modular properties of characters of these VOAs.

Pure spinor space, a cone over orthogonal Grassmannian OGr(5,10), is a central concept in the Berkovits formulation of string theory. The space of states of the beta-gamma system on pure spinors is tensor factor in the Hilbert space of string theory . This is why it would be nice to have a good definition of this space of states. This is not a straightforward task because of the conical singularity of the target. In the talk I will explain a strategy for attacking  conical targets. In the case of pure spinors the method gives a formula for partition function of pure spinors.

Ousman Kodio

Lubricated wrinkles: imposed constraints affect the dynamics of wrinkle coarsening

We investigate the problem of an elastic beam above a thin viscous layer. The beam is subjected to
a fixed end-to-end displacement, which will ultimately cause it to adopt the Euler-buckled
state. However, additional liquid must be drawn in to allow this buckling. In the interim, the beam
forms a wrinkled state with wrinkles coarsening over time. This problem has been studied
experimentally by Vandeparre \textit{et al.~Soft Matter} (2010), who provides a scaling argument
suggesting that the wavelength, $\lambda$, of the wrinkles grows according to $\lambda\sim t^{1/6}$.
However, a more detailed theoretical analysis shows that, in fact, $\lambda\sim(t/\log t)^{1/6}$.
We present numerical results to confirm this and show that this result provides a better account of
previous experiments.

Edward Rolls

Multiscale modelling of polymer dynamics: applications to DNA

We are interested in generalising existing polymer dynamics models which are applicable to DNA into multiscale models. We do this by simulating localized regions of a polymer chain with high spatial and temporal resolution, while using a coarser modelling approach to describe the rest of the polymer chain in order to increase computational speeds. The simulation maintains key macroscale properties for the entire polymer. We study the Rouse model, which describes a polymer chain of beads connected by springs by developing a numerical scheme which considers the a filament with varying spring constants as well as different timesteps to advance the positions of different beads, in order to extend the Rouse model to a multiscale model. This is applied directly to a binding model of a protein to a DNA filament. We will also discuss other polymer models and how it might be possible to introduce multiscale modelling to them.

It is well-known that the stochastic heat equation on R^n has a Hölder continuous function-valued solution in the case n=1, and that in dimensions 2 and above the solution is not function-valued but is forced to take values in some wider space of distributions. So what happens if the space has, in some sense, a dimension in between 1 and 2? We turn to the theory of fractals in order to answer this question. It has been shown (Kigami, 2001) that there exists a class of self-similar sets on which natural Laplacians can be defined, and so an analogue to the stochastic heat equation can be posed. In this talk we cover the following questions: Is the solution to this equation function-valued? If so, is it Hölder continuous? To answer the latter we must first prove an analogue of Kolmogorov's celebrated continuity theorem for the self-similar sets that we are working on. Joint work with Ben Hambly.

We give an explicit scheme to reconstruct any C^1 curve from its signature. It is implementable and comes with detailed stability properties. The key of the inversion scheme is the use of a symmetrisation procedure that separates the behaviour of the path at small and large scales. Joint work with Terry Lyons.

Malliavin calculus provides a framework to differentiate functionals defined on a Gaussian probability space with respect to the underlying noise. This allows to develop analysis on path space with infinite-dimensional generalisations of Fourier analysis, Sobolev spaces, etc from R^d. In this talk, we attempt to build a Lipschitz à la E. M. Stein (as opposed to Sobolev) function theory on rough path space. This framework allows to pathwise differentiate functionals on rough paths with respect to the underlying rough path. Time permitting, we show how to obtain Feynman-Kac-type representations for solutions to some high-order (>2) linear parabolic equations on R^d.

One of the fundamental tools in numerical analysis and PDE
is the finite element method (FEM). A main ingredient in
FEM are splines: piecewise polynomial functions on a
mesh. Even for a fixed mesh in the plane, there are many open
questions about splines: for a triangular mesh T and
smoothness order one, the dimension of the vector space
  C^1_3(T) of splines of polynomial degree at most three
is unknown. In 1973, Gil Strang conjectured a formula
for the dimension of the space C^1_2(T) in terms of the
combinatorics and geometry of the mesh T, and in 1987 Lou
Billera used algebraic topology to prove the conjecture
(and win the Fulkerson prize). I'll describe recent progress
on the study of spline spaces, including a quick and self
contained introduction to some basic but quite useful tools
from topology.