Past Probability Seminars Spring 2020

Fall 2014

Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:25 PM, unless otherwise noted.

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Thursday, September 11, Van Vleck B105, Melanie Matchett Wood, UW-Madison

Please note the non-standard room.

Title: The distribution of sandpile groups of random graphs

Abstract: The sandpile group is an abelian group associated to a graph, given as the cokernel of the graph Laplacian. An Erd˝os–R´enyi random graph then gives some distribution of random abelian groups. We will give an introduction to various models of random finite abelian groups arising in number theory and the connections to the distribution conjectured by Payne et. al. for sandpile groups. We will talk about the moments of random finite abelian groups, and how in practice these are often more accessible than the distributions themselves, but frustratingly are not a priori guaranteed to determine the distribution. In this case however, we have found the moments of the sandpile groups of random graphs, and proved they determine the measure, and have proven Payne's conjecture.

Thursday, September 18, Jonathon Peterson, Purdue University

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Thursday, September 25, Sean O'Rourke, University of Colorado Boulder

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Thursday, October 2, Jun Yin, UW-Madison

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Thursday, October 9, No seminar due to Midwest Probability Colloquium

No seminar due to Midwest Probability Colloquium.

Thursday, October 16, TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Thursday, November 6, Vadim Gorin, MIT

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Friday, November 7, Tim Chumley, Iowa State University

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Thursday, November 13, TBA

Title: TBA

Abstract:

Past Seminars