NTS Spring 2014/Abstracts

January 23

Majid Hadian-Jazi (UIC)

Title: On a motivic method in Diophantine geometry

Abstract: By studying the variation of motivic path torsors associated to a variety, we show how certain nondensity assertions in Diophantine geometry can be translated to problems concerning K-groups. Then we use some vanishing theorems to obtain concrete results.

January 30

Alexander Fish (University of Sydney, Australia)

Title: Ergodic Plunnecke inequalities with applications to sumsets of infinite sets in countable abelian groups

Abstract: By use of recent ideas of Petridis, we extend Plunnecke inequalities for sumsets of finite sets in abelian groups to the setting of measure-preserving systems. The main difference in the new setting is that instead of a finite set of translates we have an analogous inequality for a countable set of translates. As an application, by use of Furstenberg correspondence principle, we obtain new Plunnecke type inequalities for lower and upper Banach density in countable abelian groups. Joint work with Michael Bjorklund, Chalmers.

February 13

John Voight (Dartmouth)

Title: Numerical calculation of three-point branched covers of the projective line

Abstract: We exhibit a numerical method to compute three-point branched covers of the complex projective line. We develop algorithms for working explicitly with Fuchsian triangle groups and their finite index subgroups, and we use these algorithms to compute power series expansions of modular forms on these groups. This is joint work with Michael Klug, Michael Musty, and Sam Schiavone.

February 20

Nir Avni (Northwestern)

Title: Representation zeta functions

Abstract: I will talk about connections between the following: 1) Asymptotic representation theory of an arithmetic lattice G(Z). More precisely, the question of how many n-dimensional representations does G(Z) have. 2) The distribution of a random commutator in the p-adic analytic group G(Zp). 3) The complex geometry of the moduli spaces of G-local systems on a Riemann surface, and, more precisely, the structure of its singularities.

February 27

Jennifer Park (MIT)

Title: Effective Chabauty for symmetric power of curves

Abstract: While we know by Faltings' theorem that curves of genus at least 2 have finitely many rational points, his theorem is not effective. In 1985, Coleman showed that Chabauty's method, which works when the Mordell-Weil rank of the Jacobian of the curve is small, can be used to give a good effective bound on the number of rational points of curves of genus g > 1. In this talk, we draw ideas from tropical geometry to show that we can also give an effective bound on the number of rational points of Sym^d(X) that are not parametrized by a projective space or a coset of an abelian variety, where X is a curve of genus g > d, when the Mordell-Weil rank of the Jacobian of the curve is at most g-d.

Organizer contact information

Robert Harron

Sean Rostami

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