The Balmer spectrum of a tensor triangulated category is a topological tool analogous to the usual spectrum of a commutative ring. It provides a universal theory of support, giving a categorical framework to (among others) the support varieties that have been used to great effect in modular representation theory. In this talk I will present an approach to the Balmer spectrum of the stable module category of a Hopf algebra using twisted tensor products and emphasizing examples. This will include an unpretentious introduction to twisted tensor products, the Balmer spectrum, and the relevance of both in representation theory.

I will present a recent work on variational problems involving nonlocal energy functionals that appear in nonlocal mechanics. The well-posedness of variational problems is established via a careful study of the associated energy spaces, which are nonstandard. I will discuss some difficulties in proving fundamental structural properties of the function spaces such as compactness. For a sequence of parametrized nonlocal functionals in suitable form, we compute their variational limit and establish a rigorous connection with classical models.

Recall that two finitely generated groups G and H are quasi-isometric, if they admit a topological coupling, i.e. an action of G times H on a locally compact topological space such that each factor acts properly and cocompactly. This topological definition of quasi-isometry was given by Gromov, and at the same time he proposed a measure theoretic analogue of this definition, called the measure equivalence, which is closely related to the notion of orbit equivalence in ergodic theory. Despite the similarity in the definition of measure equivalence and quasi-isometry, their relationship is rather mysterious and not well-understood. We study the relation between these two notions in the class of right-angled Artin groups. In this talk, we show if H is a countable group with bounded torsion which is integrable measure equivalence to a right-angled Artin group G with finite outer automorphism group, then H is finitely generated, and H and G are quasi-isometric. This allows us to deduce integrable measure equivalence rigidity results from the relevant quasi-isometric rigidity results for a large class of right-angled Artin groups. Interestly, this class of groups are rigid for a reason which is quite different from other cases of measure equivalence rigidity. We will also do a quick survey of relevant measure equivalence rigidity and quasi-isometric rigidity results of other classes of groups, motivating our choice of right-angled Artin groups as a playground. This is joint work with Camille Horbez.

The development of accurate and efficient numerical solutions to the wave equation is a fundamental area of scientific research with applications in several fields, including music, computer graphics, architecture, and telecommunications. A key challenge in wave simulation research concerns the proper handling of wave propagation on an unbounded domain. This challenge is known as the infinite domain problem. In this talk, I present a novel geometric framework for solving this problem based on the classical Kelvin transformation. I express the wave equation as a Laplace problem in Minkowski spacetime and show that the problem is conformally invariant under Kelvin transformations using the Minkowski metric while the boundedness of the spacetime is not. These two properties of the Kelvin transformation in Minkowski spacetime ensure that harmonic functions which span infinite spacetime can be simulated using finite computational resources with no loss of accuracy.

 In this talk, I will discuss connections between configuration spaces, an important class of topological space, and combinatorial algebras arising from the theory of reflection groups. In particular, I will present work relating the cohomology rings of some classical configuration spaces - such as the space of n ordered points in Euclidean space - with Solomon descent algebra and the peak algebra. The talk will be centered around two questions. First, how are these objects related? Second, how can studying one inform the other? This is joint, on-going work with Marcelo Aguiar and Vic Reiner.

Recent radical evolution in distributed sensing, computation, communication, and actuation has fostered the emergence of cyber-physical network systems. Regardless of the specific application, one central goal is to shape the network's collective behavior through the design of admissible local decision-making algorithms. This is nontrivial due to various challenges such as local connectivity, system complexity and uncertainty, limited information structure, and the complex intertwined physics and human interactions.

In this talk, I will present our recent progress in formally advancing the systematic design of distributed coordination in network systems via harnessing special properties of the underlying problems and systems. In particular, we will present three examples and discuss three types of properties, i) how to use network structure to ensure the performance of the local controllers; ii) how to use the information and communication structure to develop distributed learning rules; iii) how to use domain-specific properties to further improve the efficiency of the distributed control and learning algorithms.

Bio: Na Li is a Gordon McKay professor in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University.  She received her Bachelor degree in Mathematics from Zhejiang University in 2007 and Ph.D. degree in Control and Dynamical systems from California Institute of Technology in 2013. She was a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013-2014.  She has hold a variety of shorter term visiting appointments including  the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, MIT, and Google Brain. Her research lies in control, learning, and optimization of networked systems, including theory development, algorithm design, and applications to real-world cyber-physical societal system.  She has been an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Systems & Control letters, IEEE Control Systems Letters, and served on the organizing committee for numerous conferences.  She received NSF career award (2016), AFSOR Young Investigator Award (2017), ONR Young Investigator Award(2019),  Donald P. Eckman Award (2019), McDonald Mentoring Award (2020), the IFAC Manfred Thoma Medal (2023), along with some other awards.

In this talk, I will introduce a few games for you and your partner (if any exists) to play. They can help you get to know each other and descriptive set theory better. It’s all fun and games.

This talk will provide a basic introduction to the world of nonlinear PDEs.

 I will discuss compact uniformly recurrent subgroups and compact invariant random subgroups in locally compact groups, and present results from ongoing projects with Pierre-Emanuel Caprace and Waltraud Lederle, and with Tal Cohen.

We prove the existence of nontrivial closed surfaces with constant anisotropic mean curvature with respect to elliptic integrands in closed smooth 3-dimensional Riemannian manifolds. The constructed min-max surfaces are smooth with at most one singular point. The constant anisotropic mean curvature can be fixed to be any real number. In particular, we partially solve a conjecture of Allard [Invent. Math.,1983] in dimension 3.

 In this talk we will discuss several stochastic epidemic models recently developed to account for general infectious durations, infection-age dependent infectivity and/or progress loss of immunity/varying susceptibility, extending the standard epidemic models. We construct individual based stochastic models, and prove scaling limits for the associated epidemic dynamics in large populations. Each individual is associated with a random function/process that represents the infection-age dependent infectivity force to exert on other individuals. We extend this formulation to associate each individual with a random function that represents the loss of immunity/varying susceptibility. A typical infectivity function first increases and then decreases from the epoch of becoming infected to the time of recovery, while a typical immunity/susceptibility function gradually increases from the time of recovery to the time of losing immunity and becoming susceptible. The scaling limits are deterministic and stochastic Volterra integral equations. We also discuss some new PDEs models arising from the scaling limits. (This talk is based on joint work with Etienne Pardoux, Raphael Forien, and Arsene Brice Zosta Ngoufack.)

 I will explain how various results in arithmetic statistics by Bhargava, Gross, Shankar, and others on 2-Selmer groups of Jacobians of (hyper)elliptic curves can be organized and reproved using the theory of graded Lie algebras, following the earlier work of Thorne. This gives uniform proof of these results and yields new theorems for certain families of non-hyperelliptic curves. I will also mention some applications to rational points on certain families of curves.

The talk will involve a mixture of representation theory, number theory
and algebraic geometry and I will assume no familiarity with arithmetic
statistics.

It is a folklore conjecture that the sup norm of a Laplace eigenfunction on a compact hyperbolic surface grows more slowly than any positive power of the eigenvalue.  In dimensions three and higher, this was shown to be false by Iwaniec-Sarnak and Donnelly.  I will present joint work with Farrell Brumley that strengthens these results, and extends them to locally symmetric spaces associated to $\mathrm{SO}(p,q)$.

[pre-talk at 1:20PM]