Algebraic Geometry

Understanding arithmetic and geometry through cutting and pasting

Speaker: 
Ravi Vakil
Date: 
Thu, Sep 21, 2023
Location: 
Online
Conference: 
PIMS Network Wide Colloquium
Abstract: 

Euler’s famous formula tells us that (with appropriate caveats), a map on the sphere with f countries (faces), e borders (edges), and v border-ends (vertices) will satisfy v-e+f=2. And more generally, for a map on a surface with g holes, v-e+f=2-2g. Thus we can figure out the genus of a surface by cutting it into pieces (faces, edges, vertices), and just counting the pieces appropriately. This is an example of the topological maxim “think globally, act locally”. A starting point for modern algebraic geometry can be understood as the realization that when geometric objects are actually algebraic, then cutting and pasting tells you far more than it does in “usual” geometry. I will describe some easy-to-understand statements (with hard-to-understand proofs), as well as easy-to-understand conjectures (some with very clever counterexamples, by M. Larsen, V. Lunts, L. Borisov, and others). I may also discuss some joint work with Melanie Matchett Wood.

Speaker biography:

Ravi Vakil is a Professor of Mathematics and the Robert K. Packard University Fellow at Stanford University, and was the David Huntington Faculty Scholar. He received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, an American Mathematical Society Centennial Fellowship, a Frederick E. Terman fellowship, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, the presidential award PECASE, and the Brown Faculty Fellowship. Vakil also received the Coxeter-James Prize from the Canadian Mathematical Society, and the André-Aisenstadt Prize from the CRM in Montréal. He was the 2009 Earle Raymond Hedrick Lecturer at Mathfest, and a Mathematical Association of America's Pólya Lecturer 2012-2014. The article based on this lecture has won the Lester R. Ford Award in 2012 and the Chauvenet Prize in 2014. In 2013, he was a Simons Fellow in Mathematics.

Class: 

Non-realizability of polytopes via linear programming

Speaker: 
Amy Wiebe
Date: 
Wed, Apr 20, 2022
Location: 
Online
Conference: 
Emergent Research: The PIMS Postdoctoral Fellow Seminar
Abstract: 

A classical question in polytope theory is whether an abstract polytope can be realized as a concrete convex object. Beyond dimension 3, there seems to be no concise answer to this question in general. In specific instances, answering the question in the negative is often done via “final polynomials” introduced by Bokowski and Sturmfels. This method involves finding a polynomial which, based on the structure of a polytope if realizable, must be simultaneously zero and positive, a clear contradiction. The search space for these polynomials is ideal of Grassmann-Plücker relations, which quickly becomes too large to efficiently search, and in most instances where this technique is used, additional assumptions on the structure of the desired polynomial are necessary.

In this talk, I will describe how by changing the search space, we are able to use linear programming to exhaustively search for similar polynomial certificates of non-realizability without any assumed structure. We will see that, perhaps surprisingly, this elementary strategy yields results that are competitive with more elaborate alternatives and allows us to prove non-realizability of several interesting polytopes.

Class: 

Skeleta for Monomial Quiver Relations

Speaker: 
Jesse Huang
Date: 
Wed, Dec 1, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Alberta
Zoom
Online
Conference: 
Emergent Research: The PIMS Postdoctoral Fellow Seminar
Abstract: 

I will introduce a skeleton obtained directly from monomial relations in a finite quiver without cycles, and relate the construction to some classical examples in mirror symmetry. This is work in progress with David Favero.

Class: 

Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry - 5

Speaker: 
Andreas Malmendier
Date: 
Mon, Nov 15, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Alberta
Zoom
Online
Conference: 
PIMS Network Courses
Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry
Abstract: 

This is a guest lecture in the PIMS Network Wide Graduate Course in Differential Equations in Algebraic Geometry.

Class: 

Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry - 4

Speaker: 
Matt Kerr
Date: 
Fri, Nov 5, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Alberta
Zoom
Online
Conference: 
PIMS Network Courses
Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry
Abstract: 

This is a guest lecture in the PIMS Network Wide Graduate Course in Differential Equations in Algebraic Geometry.

Class: 

Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry - 3

Speaker: 
Adrian Clingher
Date: 
Wed, Nov 3, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Alberta
Zoom
Online
Conference: 
PIMS Network Courses
Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry
Abstract: 

This is a guest lecture in the PIMS Network Wide Graduate Course in Differential Equations in Algebraic Geometry.

Class: 

Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry - 2

Speaker: 
Hossein Movasati
Date: 
Sat, Oct 30, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Alberta
Zoom
Conference: 
PIMS Network Courses
Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry
Abstract: 

This is a guest lecture in the PIMS Network Wide Graduate Course in Differential Equations in Algebraic Geometry.

Class: 

Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry - 1

Speaker: 
Hossein Movasati
Date: 
Wed, Oct 27, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Alberta
Zoom
Conference: 
PIMS Network Courses
Differential Equations and Algebraic Geometry
Abstract: 

This is a guest lecture in the PIMS Network Wide Graduate Course in Differential Equations in Algebraic Geometry.

Class: 

Branes, Quivers, and BPS Algebras 4 of 4

Speaker: 
Miroslav Rapčák
Date: 
Thu, Aug 26, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Saskatchewan
Online
Zoom
Conference: 
2nd PIMS Summer School on Algebraic Geometry in High Energy Physics
Abstract: 

This series of lectures covers a brief introduction into some algebro-geometric techniques used in the construction of BPS algebras. The starting point of our construction is a physical picture of D0-branes bound to D-branes of higher dimension. Using methods of the derived category of coherent sheaves, we are going to derive a framed quiver with potential describing supersymmetric quantum mechanics capturing the low-energy behavior of such D0-branes. For a large class of quivers, we are going to identify the space of BPS states with different melted-crystal configurations. Finally, by employing correspondences, we are going to construct an action of a BPS algebra known as the affine Yangian on the space of BPS states. The action of the affine Yangian factors through the action of various vertex operator algebras, Cherednik algebras, and more. This construction leads to an enormously rich interplay between physics, geometry and representation theory.

  1. Lecture 1
  2. Lecture 2
  3. Lecture 3
  4. Lecture 4
Class: 

Branes, Quivers, and BPS Algebras 3 of 4

Speaker: 
Miroslav Rapčák
Date: 
Wed, Aug 25, 2021
Location: 
PIMS, University of Saskatchewan
Online
Zoom
Conference: 
2nd PIMS Summer School on Algebraic Geometry in High Energy Physics
Abstract: 

This series of lectures covers a brief introduction into some algebro-geometric techniques used in the construction of BPS algebras. The starting point of our construction is a physical picture of D0-branes bound to D-branes of higher dimension. Using methods of the derived category of coherent sheaves, we are going to derive a framed quiver with potential describing supersymmetric quantum mechanics capturing the low-energy behavior of such D0-branes. For a large class of quivers, we are going to identify the space of BPS states with different melted-crystal configurations. Finally, by employing correspondences, we are going to construct an action of a BPS algebra known as the affine Yangian on the space of BPS states. The action of the affine Yangian factors through the action of various vertex operator algebras, Cherednik algebras, and more. This construction leads to an enormously rich interplay between physics, geometry and representation theory.

  1. Lecture 1
  2. Lecture 2
  3. Lecture 3
  4. Lecture 4
Class: 

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