Past Probability Seminars Spring 2020: Difference between revisions

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= Fall 2018 =
= Spring 2020 =


<b>Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:25 PM</b>, unless otherwise noted.  
<b>Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:30 PM</b>, unless otherwise noted.  
<b>We  usually end for questions at 3:15 PM.</b>
<b>We  usually end for questions at 3:20 PM.</b>


If you would like to sign up for the email list to receive seminar announcements then please send an email to  
If you would like to sign up for the email list to receive seminar announcements then please send an email to  
[mailto:join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu]
[mailto:join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu]


== January 23, 2020, [https://www.math.wisc.edu/~seppalai/ Timo Seppalainen] (UW Madison) ==
'''Non-existence of bi-infinite geodesics in the exponential corner growth model
'''


Whether bi-infinite geodesics exist has been a significant open problem in first- and last-passage percolation since the mid-80s.  A non-existence proof  in the case of directed planar last-passage percolation with exponential weights was posted by Basu, Hoffman and Sly in  November 2018. Their proof utilizes estimates from integrable probability.    This talk describes an independent proof completed 10 months later that relies on couplings, coarse graining, and control of geodesics through planarity and increment-stationary last-passage percolation. Joint work with Marton Balazs and Ofer Busani (Bristol).


==<span style="color:red"> Friday, August 10, 10am, B239 Van Vleck </span> András Mészáros, Central European University, Budapest ==
== January 30, 2020, [https://www.math.wisc.edu/people/vv-prof-directory Scott Smith] (UW Madison) ==
 
'''Quasi-linear parabolic equations with singular forcing'''
 
Title: '''The distribution of sandpile groups of random regular graphs'''
 
Abstract:
We study the distribution of the sandpile group of random <math>d</math>-regular graphs. For the directed model we prove that it follows the Cohen-Lenstra heuristics, that is, the probability that the <math>p</math>-Sylow subgroup of the sandpile group is a given <math>p</math>-group <math>P</math>, is proportional to <math>|\operatorname{Aut}(P)|^{-1}</math>. For finitely many primes, these events get independent in limit. Similar results hold for undirected random regular graphs, there for odd primes the limiting distributions are the ones given by Clancy, Leake and Payne.
 
Our results extends a recent theorem of Huang saying that the adjacency matrices of random <math>d</math>-regular directed graphs are invertible with high probability to the undirected case.
 
<!-- ==September 13, TBA == -->
 
==September 20, [http://math.columbia.edu/~hshen/ Hao Shen], [https://www.math.wisc.edu/ UW-Madison] ==
 
Title: '''Stochastic quantization of Yang-Mills'''
 
Abstract:
"Stochastic quantization” refers to a formulation of quantum field theory as stochastic PDEs. Interesting progress has been made these years in understanding these SPDEs, examples including Phi4 and sine-Gordon. Yang-Mills is a type of quantum field theory which has gauge symmetry, and its stochastic quantization is a Yang-Mills flow perturbed by white noise.
In this talk we start by an Abelian example where we take a symmetry-preserving lattice regularization and study the continuum limit. We will then discuss non-Abelian Yang-Mills theories and introduce a symmetry-breaking smooth regularization and restore the symmetry using a notion of gauge-equivariance. With these results we can construct dynamical Wilson loop and string observables. Based on [S., arXiv:1801.04596] and [Chandra,Hairer,S., work in progress].
 
 
 
==September 27, [https://www.math.wisc.edu/~seppalai/  Timo Seppäläinen] [https://www.math.wisc.edu/ UW-Madison] ==
 
Title:'''Random walk in random environment and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang class'''
Abstract:This talk concerns a relationship between two much-studied classes of models  of motion in a random medium, namely random walk in random environment (RWRE) and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. Barraquand and Corwin (Columbia)  discovered that in 1+1 dimensional RWRE in a dynamical beta environment the correction to the quenched large deviation principle obeys KPZ behavior.  In this talk we condition the beta walk to escape at an atypical velocity and show that the resulting Doob-transformed RWRE obeys the KPZ wandering exponent 2/3.  Based on joint work with Márton Balázs (Bristol) and Firas Rassoul-Agha (Utah).


==October 4, [https://people.math.osu.edu/paquette.30/ Elliot Paquette], [https://math.osu.edu/ OSU] ==
The classical solution theory for stochastic ODE's is centered around Ito's stochastic integral.  By intertwining ideas from analysis and probability, this approach extends to many PDE's, a canonical example being multiplicative stochastic heat equations driven by space-time white noise. In both the ODE and PDE settings, the solution theory is beyond the scope of classical deterministic theory because of the ambiguity in multiplying a function with a white noiseThe theory of rough paths and regularity structures provides a more quantitative understanding of this difficulty, leading to a more refined solution theory which efficiently divides the analytic and probabilistic aspects of the problem, and remarkably, even has an algebraic component.


Title: '''Distributional approximation of the characteristic polynomial of a Gaussian beta-ensemble'''
In this talk, we will discuss a new application of these ideas to stochastic heat equations where the strength of the diffusion is not constant but random, as it depends locally on the solution.  These are known as quasi-linear equations.  Our main result yields the deterministic side of a solution theory for these PDE's, modulo a suitable renormalization.  Along the way, we identify a formally infinite series expansion of the solution which guides our analysis, reveals a nice algebraic structure, and encodes the counter-terms in the PDE.  This is joint work with Felix Otto, Jonas Sauer, and Hendrik Weber.


Abstract:
== February 6, 2020, [https://sites.google.com/site/cyleeken/ Cheuk-Yin Lee] (Michigan State) ==
The characteristic polynomial of the Gaussian beta--ensemble can be represented, via its tridiagonal model, as an entry in a product of independent random two--by--two matrices. For a point z in the complex plane, at which the transfer matrix is to be evaluated, this product of transfer matrices splits into three independent factors, each of which can be understood as a different dynamical system in the complex plane. Conjecturally, we show that the characteristic polynomial is always represented as product of at most three terms, an exponential of a Gaussian field, the stochastic Airy function, and a diffusion similar to the stochastic sine equation.
'''Sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations: modulus of continuity and multiple points'''
We explain the origins of this decomposition, and we show partial progress in establishing part of it.


Joint work with Diane Holcomb and Gaultier Lambert.
In this talk, we will discuss sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs). We will present a sharp regularity result for the stochastic wave equation driven by an additive Gaussian noise that is white in time and colored in space. We prove the exact modulus of continuity via the property of local nondeterminism. We will also discuss the existence problem for multiple points (or self-intersections) of the sample paths of SPDEs. Our result shows that multiple points do not exist in the critical dimension for a large class of Gaussian random fields including the solution of a linear system of stochastic heat or wave equations.


==October 11, [https://www.math.utah.edu/~janjigia/ Chris Janjigian], [https://www.math.utah.edu/ University of Utah] ==
== February 13, 2020, [http://www.jelena-diakonikolas.com/ Jelena Diakonikolas] (UW Madison) ==
'''Langevin Monte Carlo Without Smoothness'''


Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) is an iterative algorithm used to generate samples from a distribution that is known only up to a normalizing constant. The nonasymptotic dependence of its mixing time on the dimension and target accuracy is understood mainly in the setting of smooth (gradient-Lipschitz) log-densities, a serious limitation for applications in machine learning. We remove this limitation by providing polynomial-time convergence guarantees for a variant of LMC in the setting of non-smooth log-concave distributions. At a high level, our results follow by leveraging the implicit smoothing of the log-density that comes from a small Gaussian perturbation that we add to the iterates of the algorithm and while controlling the bias and variance that are induced by this perturbation.
Based on joint work with Niladri Chatterji, Michael I. Jordan, and Peter L. Bartlett.


Title: '''Busemann functions and Gibbs measures in directed polymer models on Z^2'''
== February 20, 2020, [https://math.berkeley.edu/~pmwood/ Philip Matchett Wood] (UC Berkeley) ==
'''A replacement principle for perturbations of non-normal matrices'''


Abstract: We consider the model of a nearest-neighbor random walk on the planar square lattice in a general iid space-time potential, which is also known as a directed polymer in a random environment. We prove results on existence, uniqueness (and non-uniqueness), and the law of large numbers for semi-infinite path measures. Our main tools are the Busemann functions, which are families of stochastic processes obtained through limits of ratios of partition functions.
There are certain non-normal matrices whose eigenvalues can change dramatically when a small perturbation is added.  However, when that perturbation is an iid random matrix, it appears that the eigenvalues become stable after perturbation and only change slightly when further small perturbations are added.  Much of the work is this situation has focused on iid random gaussian perturbations. In this talk, we will discuss work on a universality result that allows for consideration of non-gaussian perturbations, and that shows that all perturbations satisfying certain conditions will produce the same limiting eigenvalue measure.  Interestingly, this even allows for deterministic perturbations to be considered. Joint work with Sean O'Rourke.


Based on joint work with Firas Rassoul-Agha
== February 27, 2020, No seminar ==
''' '''


==October 18-20, [http://sites.math.northwestern.edu/mwp/ Midwest Probability Colloquium], No Seminar ==
== March 5, 2020, [https://www.ias.edu/scholars/jiaoyang-huang Jiaoyang Huang] (IAS) ==
''' Large Deviation Principles via Spherical Integrals'''


==October 25, [http://stat.columbia.edu/department-directory/name/promit-ghosal/ Promit Ghosal], Columbia ==
In this talk, I'll explain a framework to study the large deviation principle for matrix models and their quantized versions, by tilting the measures using the asymptotics of spherical integrals obtained by Guionnet and Zeitouni. As examples, we obtain


1) the large deviation principle for the empirical distribution of the diagonal entries of $UB_NU^*$, for a sequence of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $B_N$ and unitary/orthogonal Haar distributed matrices $U$;


Title: '''Tails of the KPZ equation'''
2) the large deviation upper bound for the empirical eigenvalue distribution of $A_N+UB_NU^*$, for two sequences of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $A_N, B_N$, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions;
     
Abstract: The KPZ equation is a fundamental stochastic PDE related to modeling random growth processes, Burgers turbulence, interacting particle system, random polymers etc. It is related to another important SPDE, namely, the stochastic heat equation (SHE). In this talk, we focus on the tail probabilities of the solution of the KPZ equation. For instance, we investigate the probability of the solution being smaller or larger than the expected value. Our analysis is based on an exact identity between the KPZ equation and the Airy point process (which arises at the edge of the spectrum of the random Hermitian matrices) and the Brownian Gibbs property of the KPZ line ensemble.


This talk will be based on a joint work with my advisor Prof. Ivan Corwin.
3) the large deviation principle for the Kostka number $K_{\lambda_N \eta_N}$, for two sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N$ with at most $N$ rows;


==November 1, [https://math.umn.edu/directory/james-melbourne James Melbourne], [https://math.umn.edu/ University of Minnesota] ==
4) the large deviation upper bound for the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients $c_{\lambda_N \eta_N}^{\kappa_N}$, for three sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N, \kappa_N$ with at most $N$ rows, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions.


Title: '''Upper bounds on the density of independent vectors under certain linear mappings'''
This is a joint work with Belinschi and Guionnet.


Abstract:  Using functional analytic techniques and rearrangement, we prove anti-concentration results for the linear images of independent random variables, in the form of density upper bounds.  For continuous variables the results unify and sharpen Bobkov-Chistyakov's for independent sums of vectors and Rudelson-Vershynin's bounds on projections of independent coordinates.  For integer valued variables the techniques reduce finding the maximum of the probability mass function of a sum of independent variables, to the case that each variable is uniform on a contiguous interval.  This problem is approached through analysis of characteristic functions and new $L^p$ bounds on the Dirichlet and Fejer Kernel are obtained and used to derive a discrete analog of Bobkov-Chistyakov.
== March 12, 2020, No seminar ==
''' '''


==November 8, [https://cims.nyu.edu/~thomasl/ Thomas Leblé], [https://cims.nyu.edu/ NYU] ==
== March 19, 2020, Spring break ==
''' '''


Title: '''The Sine-beta process: DLR equations and applications'''
== March 26, 2020, CANCELLED, [https://math.cornell.edu/philippe-sosoe Philippe Sosoe] (Cornell) ==
''' '''


Abstract:
== April 2, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~tl/ Tianyu Liu] (UW Madison)==
One-dimensional log-gases, or Beta-ensembles, are statistical physics models finding an incarnation in random matrix theory. Their limit behavior at microscopic scale is known as the Sine-beta process, its original description involves systems of coupled SDE's. In a joint work with D. Dereudre, A. Hardy, and M. Maïda, we give a new description of Sine-beta as an "infinite volume Gibbs measure", using the Dobrushin-Lanford-Ruelle (DLR) formalism, and we use it to prove the rigidity of the process, in the sense of Ghosh-Peres. Another application is a CLT for fluctuations of linear statistics.
''' '''


<!-- ==November 15, TBA == -->
== April 9, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://stanford.edu/~ajdunl2/ Alexander Dunlap] (Stanford) ==
''' '''


==November 22, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving Thanksgiving] Break, No Seminar ==
== April 16, 2020, CANCELLED, [https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/dingjian/ Jian Ding] (University of Pennsylvania) ==
''' '''


== <span style="color:red">  Monday</span>, November 26, [http://math.mit.edu/directory/profile.php?pid=1415 Vadim Gorin], [http://math.mit.edu/index.php MIT] ==
== April 22-24, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://frg.int-prob.org/ FRG Integrable Probability] meeting ==


3-day event in Van Vleck 911


<div style="width:320px;height:50px;border:5px solid black">
== April 23, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://www.hairer.org/ Martin Hairer] (Imperial College) ==
<b><span style="color:red"> Please note the unusual day and time </span></b>
</div>


Title: '''Macroscopic fluctuations through Schur generating functions'''
[https://www.math.wisc.edu/wiki/index.php/Colloquia Wolfgang Wasow Lecture] at 4pm in Van Vleck 911


Abstract:
== April 30, 2020, CANCELLED, [http://willperkins.org/ Will Perkins] (University of Illinois at Chicago) ==
I will talk about a special class of large-dimensional stochastic systems with
''' '''
strong correlations. The main examples will be random tilings, non-colliding random walks, eigenvalues of random matrices,
and measures governing decompositions of group representations into irreducible components.


It is believed that macroscopic fluctuations in such systems are universally
described by log-correlated Gaussian fields. I will present an approach to
handle this question based on the notion of the Schur generating function of a probability
distribution, and explain how it leads to a rigorous confirmation of this belief in
a variety of situations.


<!-- ==November 29, TBA == -->


== <span style="color:red">  Wednesday, </span> December 5, [http://www.mit.edu/~ssen90/ Subhabrata Sen], [https://math.mit.edu/ MIT] and [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/lab/microsoft-research-new-england/ Microsoft Research New England] ==




<div style="width:320px;height:50px;border:5px solid black">
<b><span style="color:red"> Please note the unusual day and time </span></b>
</div>


<!-- ==December 6, TBA ==-->


== ==


[[Past Seminars]]
[[Past Seminars]]

Latest revision as of 22:18, 12 August 2020


Spring 2020

Thursdays in 901 Van Vleck Hall at 2:30 PM, unless otherwise noted. We usually end for questions at 3:20 PM.

If you would like to sign up for the email list to receive seminar announcements then please send an email to join-probsem@lists.wisc.edu


January 23, 2020, Timo Seppalainen (UW Madison)

Non-existence of bi-infinite geodesics in the exponential corner growth model

Whether bi-infinite geodesics exist has been a significant open problem in first- and last-passage percolation since the mid-80s. A non-existence proof in the case of directed planar last-passage percolation with exponential weights was posted by Basu, Hoffman and Sly in November 2018. Their proof utilizes estimates from integrable probability. This talk describes an independent proof completed 10 months later that relies on couplings, coarse graining, and control of geodesics through planarity and increment-stationary last-passage percolation. Joint work with Marton Balazs and Ofer Busani (Bristol).

January 30, 2020, Scott Smith (UW Madison)

Quasi-linear parabolic equations with singular forcing

The classical solution theory for stochastic ODE's is centered around Ito's stochastic integral. By intertwining ideas from analysis and probability, this approach extends to many PDE's, a canonical example being multiplicative stochastic heat equations driven by space-time white noise. In both the ODE and PDE settings, the solution theory is beyond the scope of classical deterministic theory because of the ambiguity in multiplying a function with a white noise. The theory of rough paths and regularity structures provides a more quantitative understanding of this difficulty, leading to a more refined solution theory which efficiently divides the analytic and probabilistic aspects of the problem, and remarkably, even has an algebraic component.

In this talk, we will discuss a new application of these ideas to stochastic heat equations where the strength of the diffusion is not constant but random, as it depends locally on the solution. These are known as quasi-linear equations. Our main result yields the deterministic side of a solution theory for these PDE's, modulo a suitable renormalization. Along the way, we identify a formally infinite series expansion of the solution which guides our analysis, reveals a nice algebraic structure, and encodes the counter-terms in the PDE. This is joint work with Felix Otto, Jonas Sauer, and Hendrik Weber.

February 6, 2020, Cheuk-Yin Lee (Michigan State)

Sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations: modulus of continuity and multiple points

In this talk, we will discuss sample path properties of stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs). We will present a sharp regularity result for the stochastic wave equation driven by an additive Gaussian noise that is white in time and colored in space. We prove the exact modulus of continuity via the property of local nondeterminism. We will also discuss the existence problem for multiple points (or self-intersections) of the sample paths of SPDEs. Our result shows that multiple points do not exist in the critical dimension for a large class of Gaussian random fields including the solution of a linear system of stochastic heat or wave equations.

February 13, 2020, Jelena Diakonikolas (UW Madison)

Langevin Monte Carlo Without Smoothness

Langevin Monte Carlo (LMC) is an iterative algorithm used to generate samples from a distribution that is known only up to a normalizing constant. The nonasymptotic dependence of its mixing time on the dimension and target accuracy is understood mainly in the setting of smooth (gradient-Lipschitz) log-densities, a serious limitation for applications in machine learning. We remove this limitation by providing polynomial-time convergence guarantees for a variant of LMC in the setting of non-smooth log-concave distributions. At a high level, our results follow by leveraging the implicit smoothing of the log-density that comes from a small Gaussian perturbation that we add to the iterates of the algorithm and while controlling the bias and variance that are induced by this perturbation. Based on joint work with Niladri Chatterji, Michael I. Jordan, and Peter L. Bartlett.

February 20, 2020, Philip Matchett Wood (UC Berkeley)

A replacement principle for perturbations of non-normal matrices

There are certain non-normal matrices whose eigenvalues can change dramatically when a small perturbation is added. However, when that perturbation is an iid random matrix, it appears that the eigenvalues become stable after perturbation and only change slightly when further small perturbations are added. Much of the work is this situation has focused on iid random gaussian perturbations. In this talk, we will discuss work on a universality result that allows for consideration of non-gaussian perturbations, and that shows that all perturbations satisfying certain conditions will produce the same limiting eigenvalue measure. Interestingly, this even allows for deterministic perturbations to be considered. Joint work with Sean O'Rourke.

February 27, 2020, No seminar

March 5, 2020, Jiaoyang Huang (IAS)

Large Deviation Principles via Spherical Integrals

In this talk, I'll explain a framework to study the large deviation principle for matrix models and their quantized versions, by tilting the measures using the asymptotics of spherical integrals obtained by Guionnet and Zeitouni. As examples, we obtain

1) the large deviation principle for the empirical distribution of the diagonal entries of $UB_NU^*$, for a sequence of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $B_N$ and unitary/orthogonal Haar distributed matrices $U$;

2) the large deviation upper bound for the empirical eigenvalue distribution of $A_N+UB_NU^*$, for two sequences of $N\times N$ diagonal matrices $A_N, B_N$, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions;

3) the large deviation principle for the Kostka number $K_{\lambda_N \eta_N}$, for two sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N$ with at most $N$ rows;

4) the large deviation upper bound for the Littlewood-Richardson coefficients $c_{\lambda_N \eta_N}^{\kappa_N}$, for three sequences of partitions $\lambda_N, \eta_N, \kappa_N$ with at most $N$ rows, and their complementary lower bounds at "good" probability distributions.

This is a joint work with Belinschi and Guionnet.

March 12, 2020, No seminar

March 19, 2020, Spring break

March 26, 2020, CANCELLED, Philippe Sosoe (Cornell)

April 2, 2020, CANCELLED, Tianyu Liu (UW Madison)

April 9, 2020, CANCELLED, Alexander Dunlap (Stanford)

April 16, 2020, CANCELLED, Jian Ding (University of Pennsylvania)

April 22-24, 2020, CANCELLED, FRG Integrable Probability meeting

3-day event in Van Vleck 911

April 23, 2020, CANCELLED, Martin Hairer (Imperial College)

Wolfgang Wasow Lecture at 4pm in Van Vleck 911

April 30, 2020, CANCELLED, Will Perkins (University of Illinois at Chicago)





Past Seminars