Functional Analysis

Approximating Functions in High Dimensions

Speaker: 
Albert Cohen
Date: 
Mon, Mar 14, 2011
Location: 
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Conference: 
IAM-PIMS-MITACS Distinguished Colloquium Series
Abstract: 

This talk will discuss mathematical problems which are challenged by the fact they involve functions of a very large number of variables. Such problems arise naturally in learning theory, partial differential equations or numerical models depending on parametric or stochastic variables. They typically result in numerical difficulties due to the so-called ''curse of dimensionality''. We shall explain how these difficulties may be handled in various contexts, based on two important concepts: (i) variable reduction and (ii) sparse approximation.

Class: 

A Functional Integral Representation for Many Boson Systems

Speaker: 
Joel Feldman
Date: 
Fri, Oct 5, 2007 to Sat, Oct 6, 2007
Location: 
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Conference: 
CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize Lecture
Abstract: 

This is the 2007 CRM-Fields-PIMS prize lecture by Joel Feldman, with citation by David Brydges.

Class: 

New geometric and functional analytic ideas arising from problems in symplectic geometry

Speaker: 
Helmut Hofer
Date: 
Mon, Oct 23, 2006 to Tue, Oct 24, 2006
Location: 
PIMS, University of British Columbia
Conference: 
PIMS 10th Anniversary Lectures
Abstract: 

The study of moduli spaces of holomorphic curves in symplectic geometry is the key ingredient for the construction of symplectic invariants. These moduli spaces are suitable compactifications of solution spaces of a first order nonlinear Cauchy-Riemann type operator. The solution spaces are usually not compact due to bubbling-off phenomena and other analytical difficulties.

Class: 

Projective Modules in Classical and Quantum Functional Analysis

Author: 
A. Ya. Helemskii
Date: 
Mon, Aug 11, 2003
Location: 
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Conference: 
PIMS Distinguished Chair Lectures
Abstract: 

Homological theory of the “algebras in analysis” exists in at least three different versions. First of all, there is the homological theory of Banach and more general locally convex algebras. This is about 40 years old. However, in the last decade of the previous century, a “homological section” appeared in a new branch of analysis, the so-called quantized functional analysis or, more prosaically, the theory of operator spaces. One of principal features of this theory, as is now widely realized, is the existence of different approaches to the proper quantum version of a bounded bilinear operator. In fact, two such versions are now thought to be most important; each of them has its own relevant tensor product with an appropriate universal property. Accordingly, there are two principal versions of quantized algebras and quantized modules, and this leads to two principal versions of quantized homology.

Thus we have now, in the first decade of the 21st century, three species of topological homology: the traditional (or “classical”) one, and two “quantized” ones.

In these lectures, we shall restrict ourselves by studying, in the framework of these three theories, the fundamental concept of a projective module. This concept is “primus inter pares” among the three recognized pillars of the science of homology: projectivity, injectivity, and flatness. It is this notion that is the cornerstone for every sufficiently developed homological theory, let it be in algebra, topology, or, as in these notes, in functional analysis.

Our initial definitions of projectivity do not go far away from their prototypes in abstract algebra. However, the principal results concern essentially functional-analytic objects. As we shall see, they have, as a rule, no purely algebraic analogues. Moreover,
some phenomena are strikingly different from what algebraists could expect, based on their experience.

Notes: 
Class: