Seminar Calendar
for Algebraic Geometry Seminar events the year of Friday, April 21, 2017.

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events for the
events containing

Questions regarding events or the calendar should be directed to Tori Corkery.
      March 2017             April 2017              May 2017
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1  2  3  4                      1       1  2  3  4  5  6
5  6  7  8  9 10 11    2  3  4  5  6  7  8    7  8  9 10 11 12 13
12 13 14 15 16 17 18    9 10 11 12 13 14 15   14 15 16 17 18 19 20
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26 27 28 29 30 31      23 24 25 26 27 28 29   28 29 30 31
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Thursday, January 19, 2017

3:00 pm   in 345 Altgeld Hall,  Thursday, January 19, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Organizational meeting

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, January 24, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by katz.
 Yungfeng Jiang (U Kansas Math)On the Behrend function and its motivic version in Donaldson-Thomas theoryAbstract: The Behrend function, introduced by K. Behrend, is a fundamental tool in the study of Donaldson-Thomas invariants. In his foundational paper K. Behrend proves that the weighted Euler characteristic of the Donaldson-Thomas moduli space weighted by the Behrend function is the Donaldson-Thomas invariants defined by R. Thomas using virtual fundamental cycles. This makes the Donaldson-Thomas invariants motivic. In this talk I will talk about the basic notion of the Behrend function and apply it to several other interesting geometries. If time permits, I will also talk about the motivic version of the Behrend function and the famous Joyce-Song formula of the Behrend function identities.

Friday, January 27, 2017

3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Friday, January 27, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Josh Wen (UIUC Math)Raindrop. Droptop. Symmetric functions from DAHA.Abstract: In symmetric function theory, various distinguished bases for the ring of (deformed) symmetric functions come from specifying an inner product on said ring and then performing Gram-Schmidt on the monomial symmetric functions. In the case of Jack polynomials, there is an alternative characterization as eigenfunctions for the Calogero-Sutherland operator. This operator gives a completely integrable system, hinting at some additional algebraic structure, and an investigation of this structure digs up the affine Hecke algebra. Work of Cherednik and Matsuo formalize this in terms of an isomorphism between the affine Knizhnik-Zamolodichikov (KZ) equation and the quantum many body problem. Looking at q-analogues yields a connection between the affine Hecke algebra and Macdonald polynomials by relating the quantum affine KZ equation and the Macdonald eigenvalue problem. All of this can be streamlined by circumventing the KZ equations via Cherednik's double affine Hecke algebra (DAHA). I hope to introduce various characters in this story and give a sense of why having a collection of commuting operators can be a great thing.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, January 31, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 Tom Nevins (UIUC)Kirwan surjectivity for quiver varietiesAbstract: Many interesting hyperkahler, or more generally holomorphic symplectic, manifolds are constructed via hyperkahler/holomorphic symplectic reduction. For such a manifold there is a “hyperkahler Kirwan map,” from the equivariant cohomology of the original manifold to the reduced space. It is a long-standing question when this map is surjective (in the Kahler rather than hyperkahler case, this has been known for decades thanks to work of Atiyah-Bott and Kirwan). I’ll describe a resolution of the question (joint work with K. McGerty) for Nakajima quiver varieties: their cohomology is generated by Chern classes of “tautological bundles.” If there is time, I will explain that this is a particular instance of a general story in noncommutative geometry. The talk will not assume prior familiarity with any of the notions above.

Friday, February 3, 2017

3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Friday, February 3, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Eliana Duarte (UIUC Math)Syzygies and Implicitization of tensor product surfacesAbstract: A tensor product surface is the closure of the image of a map $\lambda:\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1\to \mathbb{P}^3$. These surfaces arise in geometric modeling and in this context it is useful to know the implicit equation of $\lambda$ in $\mathbb{P}^{3}$. Currently, syzygies and Rees algebras provide the fastest and most versatile method to find implicit equations of parameterized surfaces. Knowing the structure of the syzygies of the polynomials that define the map $\lambda$ allows us to formulate faster algorithms for implicitization of these surfaces and also to understand their singularities. We show that for tensor product surfaces without basepoints, the existence of a linear syzygy imposes strong conditions on the structure of the syzygies that determine the implicit equation. For tensor product surfaces with basepoints we show that the syzygies that determine the implicit equation of $\lambda$ are closely related to the geometry of the set of points at which $\lambda$ is undefined.

Friday, February 10, 2017

3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Friday, February 10, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Matej Penciak (UIUC Math)The KP-CM correspondenceAbstract: In this talk I will describe how two seemingly unrelated integrable systems have an unexpected connection. I will begin with the classical story first worked out by Airault, McKean, and Moser. I will then describe a more modern interpretation of the relation due to Ben-Zvi and Nevins.

Friday, February 17, 2017

3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Friday, February 17, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Lutian Zhao (UIUC Math)What is a Topological Quantum Field Theory?Abstract: In this talk we will introduce the physicists' definition of topological quantum field theory, mainly focusing on cohomological quantum field theory introduced by Witten. We will discuss topological twisting and see what topological invariant is actually computed. If time permits, we will see how Gromov-Witten invariants are constructed by physics.

Friday, February 24, 2017

3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Friday, February 24, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Sungwoo Nam (UIUC Math)Quantum cohomology of Grassmannians and Gromov-Witten invariantsAbstract: As a deformation of classical cohomology ring, (small) quantum cohomology ring of Grassmannians has a nice description in terms of quantum Schubert classes and it has (3 point, genus 0) Gromov-Witten invariants as its structure constants. In this talk, we will describe how 'quantum corrections' can be made to obtain quantum Schubert calculus from classical Schubert calculus. After studying its structure, we will see that the Gromov-Witten invariants, which define ring structure of quantum cohomology of Grassmannians, are equal to the classical intersection number of two-step flag varieties. If time permits, we will discuss classical and quantum Littlewood-Richardson rule using triangular puzzles.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, February 28, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 Sheldon Katz (UIUC)BPS Counts on K3 surfaces and their products with elliptic curvesAbstract: In this survey talk, I begin by reviewing the string theory-based BPS spectrum computations I wrote about with Klemm and Vafa in the late 1990s. These were presented to the algebraic geometry community as a prediction for Gromov-Witten invariants. But our calculations of the BPS spectrum contained much more information than could be interpreted via algebraic geometry at that time. During the intervening years, Donaldson-Thomas invariants were introduced, used by Pandharipande and Thomas in their 2014 proof of the original KKV conjecture. It has since become apparent that the full meaning of the KKV calculations, and more recent extensions, can be mathematically interpreted via motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants. With this understanding, we arrive at precise and deep conjectures. I conclude by surveying the more recent work of myself and others in testing and extending these physics-inspired conjectures on motivic BPS invariants.

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, March 7, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 Andras Lorincz (Purdue University)Bernstein-Sato polynomials for maximal minorsAbstract: Initially introduced for hypersurfaces, Bernstein-Sato polynomials have been recently defined for arbitrary varieties by N. Budur, M. Mustata and M. Saito. Nevertheless, they are notoriously difficult to compute with very few explicit cases known. In this talk, after giving the necessary background, I will discuss some techniques that allow the computation of the Bernstein-Sato polynomial of the ideal of maximal minors of a generic matrix. Time permitting, I will also talk about connections to topological zeta functions and show the monodromy conjecture for this case.Initially introduced for hypersurfaces, Bernstein-Sato polynomials have been recently defined for arbitrary varieties by N. Budur, M. Mustata and M. Saito. Nevertheless, they are notoriously difficult to compute with very few explicit cases known. In this talk, after giving the necessary background, I will discuss some techniques that allow the computation of the Bernstein-Sato polynomial of the ideal of maximal minors of a generic matrix. Time permitting, I will also talk about connections to topological zeta functions and show the monodromy conjecture for this case.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, March 14, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 Junwu Tu (University of Missouri )Categorical Gromov-Witten InvariantsAbstract: In this talk, following Costello and Kontsevich, we describe a construction of Gromov-Witten type invariants from cyclic A-infinity categories.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, March 28, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 John Lesieutre (UIC)A variety with non-finitely generated automorphism groupAbstract: If X is a projective variety, then Aut(X)/Aut^0(X) is a countable group, but little is known about what groups can occur. I will construct a six-dimensional variety for which this group is not finitely generated, and discuss how the construction can adapted to give an example of a complex variety with infinitely many non-isomorphic real forms.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, April 4, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 Tatsunari Watanabe (Purdue University)Rational points of generic curves and the section conjectureAbstract: The section conjecture comes from Grothendieck's anabelian philosophy where he predicts that if a variety is "anabelian", then its arithmetic fundamental group should control its geometry. In this talk, I will introduce the section conjecture and the generic curve of genus g >=4 with no marked points as an example where the conjecture holds. The primary tool used is called weighted completion of profinite groups developed by R Hain and M Matsumoto. It linearizes a profinite group such as arithmetic mapping class groups and is relatively computable since it is controlled by cohomology groups.

Friday, April 7, 2017

3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Friday, April 7, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by jjwen2.
 Joseph Pruitt (UIUC Math)An introduction to quantum cohomology and the quantum productAbstract: The quantum cohomology ring of a variety is a q-deformation of the ordinary cohomology ring. In this talk I will define the quantum cohomology ring, discuss attempts to describe the quantum cohomology rings of toric varieties via generators and relations, and I will close with some methods to actually work with the quantum product.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, April 11, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by rtramel.
 Deepam Patel (Purdue University)Enriched Hodge StructuresAbstract: It is well known the the category of mixed Hodge structures does not give the right answer when studying cycles on possibly open/singular varieties. In this talk, we will discuss how the category of mixed Hodge structures can be `enriched’ to a category appropriate for studying algebraic cycles on infinitesimal thickenings of complex analytic varieties. This is based on joint work with Madhav Nori and Vasudevan Srinivas.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Algebraic Geometry Seminar
3:00 pm   in 243 Altgeld Hall,  Tuesday, April 18, 2017
 Del Edit Copy
Submitted by katz.
 Rahul Pandharipande (ETH Zurich)Stable quotients and the B-modelAbstract: I will give an account of recent progress on stable quotient invariants, especially from the point of view of the B-model and present a geometrical derivation of the holomorphic anomaly equation for local CY cases (joint work with Hyenho Lho).

Friday, April 21, 2017