Meetings Archive

Professor Tim Burness – Inaugural Lecture

Title: Simple groups, probabilistic methods and applications

Abstract: Group theory is used to study symmetry in a vast range of mathematical and physical systems, from the foundations of quantum physics to the intricacies of the Rubik’s cube. The finite simple groups are the “atoms” in this theory, analogous to the primes in number theory, and they have been a central focus of interest for almost 200 years. An ambitious project to classify these fascinating objects was completed about 20 years ago and this monumental achievement has had a profound influence on group theory and its applications.

In this lecture, I will begin by discussing some of the history around simple groups and their central role in group theory. I will then highlight several more recent developments, where the power of the classification theorem has been combined with probabilistic methods to great effect. For example, I will explain the major impact of these ideas on the study of bases for permutation groups, which is a classical concept introduced in the 19th century, and I will conclude by presenting some recent results on the generation properties of finite groups.

Although this event is free to attend we ask that you please book your place via the Eventbrite page here to allow us to monitor numbers.

Please note, the lecture will begin at 4pm, however we invite attendees to join us in Fry Atrium from 3.15pm for refreshments.

Contact information

For enquiries about this event please contact maths-conference-administrator@bristol.ac.uk.

Two-Day Geometry Meeting

This Two-Day Geometry Meeting taking place over the afternoon of Monday 22nd May and morning of Tuesday 23rd May will feature six talks from internationally-renowned researchers in a number of fields in geometry. There will also be a lightning talk session for early career researchers.

Partially funded by the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research.

Confirmed speakers:

Ara Basmajian, CUNY Graduate Center

Tara Brendle, University of Glasgow

Cornelia Drutu, University of Oxford

Dawid Kielak, University of Oxford

Christopher Leininger, Rice University

Hugo Parlier, University of Luxembourg

Registration: Please register to attend via the following link. There is no fee to attend this event. Please note, registration closes on Friday 12 May, 11.45pm.

We are able to offer partial funding to early career researchers, so please indicate in the registration form whether or not you would like to request funding. If you would like to apply for funding, please register before midday Friday 28 April.

Schedule:

Monday 22nd May

13:00 – 13:50 Talk 1: Hugo Parlier, “Universal families of arcs and curves on surfaces”
14:00 – 14:50 Talk 2: Ara Basmajian, “Counting problems on the modular surface”
14:55 – 15:15 Coffee
15:20 – 16:10 Talk 3: Dawid Kielak, “Fibring, one-relator groups, and L²-homology”
16:20 – 17:20 Lightning talks for early career researchers
18:00 – 20:00 Dinner

Tuesday 23rd May

09:30 – 10:20 Talk 4: Tara Brendle, “Semi-direct product structures in mapping class groups of 3-manifolds”
10:25 – 10:45 Coffee
10:50 – 11:40 Talk 5: Christopher Leininger, “Geometry of subgroups of the mapping class group”
11:45 – 12:35 Lunch
12:40 – 13:30 Talk 6: Cornelia Drutu, “Property (T) and a-T-menability revisited”

Abstracts can be found here: Abstracts from Two-day Geometry Meeting (final) (PDF, 74kB).

Lightning talks schedule:

Harsh Patil, University of Bristol, “Asymptotic Cones”
Paweł Piwek, University of Oxford, “Group extensions: how to fill in the blank in 1 → N → __ → Q → 1”
David Sheard, King’s College London, “Reflection equivalence in Coxeter groups”
Piotr Mizerka, Polish Academy of Sciences, “Spectral gaps for cohomological Laplacians of SL(n, ℤ)”
Adele Jackson, University of Oxford, “Triangulations of Seifert fibered spaces”
Bin Sun, University of Oxford, “An approach to Simon’s Conjecture via the theory of division rings”
Tudur Lewis, University of Glasgow, “A Dehn surgery approach to the Birman-Craggs and Sato maps”
Riccardo Giannini, University of Glasgow, “Geometric homomorphisms and strata of translation surfaces”
Aaron Calderon, University of Chicago, “What do curves of long (hyperbolic/extremal) length look like?”
Changjie Chen, Brown University, “Morse functions on the moduli space and an investigation of its topology”

Contact information

This event is organised by Viveka Erlandsson (v.erlandsson@bristol.ac.uk) and Luke Jeffreys (luke.jeffreys@bristol.ac.uk).

For practical information please contact maths-conference-administrator@bristol.ac.uk

Tropical Days in Bristol

A two-day conference on tropical mathematics and surrounding research areas. This event will bring together researchers from the tropical maths community and further afield.

Please find details, including speakers and registration information, on the event website.

Spectral Theory Workshop

The first event of the UK Spectral Theory Network will be a research workshop, taking place at the University of Bristol on 4-6 September 2023.

Invited Speakers include:

Sabine Bögli (Durham)
Dorin Bucur (Savoie)
Katie Gittins (Durham)
Eva-Maria Graefe (Imperial)
Stephane Nonnenmacher (Paris-Saclay)
Alessandro Savo (Sapienza, Rome)
Alexander Sobolev (University College London)
Igor Wigman (King’s College London)

Public lecture

Registration

For further information and to register to attend, please visit the event website.

Heilbronn Colloquium 2023: Iosif Polterovich

Organised in collaboration with the School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, UK

Venue: Lecture Theatre 2.41, School of Mathematics, Fry Building, Woodland Road, University of Bristol

Title: Nodal count via topological data analysis

Abstract: A nodal domain of a function is a connected component of the complement to its zero set. The celebrated Courant nodal domain theorem implies that the number of nodal domains of a Laplace eigenfunction is controlled by the corresponding eigenvalue. There have been many attempts to find an appropriate generalization of this statement in various directions: to linear combinations of eigenfunctions, to their products, to other operators. It turns out that these and other extensions of Courant’s theorem can be obtained if one counts the nodal domains in a coarse way, i.e. ignoring small oscillations. The proof uses multiscale polynomial approximation in Sobolev spaces and the theory of persistence barcodes originating in topological data analysis. The talk is based on a joint work with L. Buhovsky, J. Payette, L. Polterovich, E. Shelukhin and V. Stojisavljević. No prior knowledge of spectral geometry and topological persistence will be assumed.

Join the Heilbronn Event mailing list to keep up to date with our upcoming events.

Heilbronn Colloquium 2023: Jinho Baik

Organised in collaboration with the School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, UK

Venue: Lecture Theatre 2.41, School of Mathematics, Fry Building, Woodland Road, University of Bristol

KPZ Limit Theorems

Jinho Baik, University of Michigan, USA

One-dimensional interacting particle systems, 1+1 random growth models, and two-dimensional directed polymers define two-dimensional random fields. The KPZ universality conjectures that an appropriately scaled height function converges to a model-independent universal random field for a large class of models. We survey some of the limit theorems and discuss changes that arise when we consider different domains. In particular, we present recent results on periodic domains. We also comment on integrable probability models, integrable differential equations, and universality

Join the Heilbronn Event mailing list to keep up to date with our upcoming events.

Heilbronn Colloquium 2023: Nalini Anantharaman

Monday 13 February 2023 at 15:00 Organised in collaboration with the School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, UK Venue: Lecture Theatre 2.41, School of Mathematics, Fry Building, Woodland Road, University of Bristol

Uncertainty Principle and Uncertainty Inequalities

Nalini Anantharaman, Institute for Advanced Mathematical Research (IRMA), University of Strasbourg, France We shall discuss mathematical forms of the uncertainty principle and its relationship with quantum unique ergodicity. Register here Join the Heilbronn Event mailing list to keep up to date with our upcoming events.

CMI-HIMR Summer School on Probabilistic Group Theory

Hosted by: School of Mathematics, Fry Building, University of Bristol, UK

Jointly funded by the Clay Mathematics Institute and the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research.

In recent years, probabilistic methods have been at the heart of many spectacular advances in group theory and related areas, finding a diverse range of applications. This summer school will introduce a wide audience of graduate students and early career researchers to some of the most exciting recent developments. The programme will feature four short courses from world-leading experts in the area, together with tutored problem sessions for participants.

More information on the summer school website

Applications are now open, please apply here. The application deadline is 24th February 2023, 23:59 GMT.

Confirmed lecturers:

Martin Liebeck (Imperial College London)

Cheryl Praeger (University of Western Australia)

Aner Shalev (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Pham Huu Tiep (Rutgers University)

Guest lecturers:

Emmanuel Breuillard (Oxford)

Ben Green (Oxford)

Colva Roney-Dougal (St Andrews)

Applications are now open, please apply here. The application deadline is 24th February 2023, 23:59 GMT.

If you have any questions, please contact heilbronn-coordinator@bristol.ac.uk. Visit the summer school’s event website for further information.

Join the Heilbronn Event mailing list to keep up to date with our upcoming events.

Fry Conference Series: New Perspectives in Pure Mathematics

This is the last in a series of conferences being held to celebrate the move of the School of Mathematics at the University of Bristol to the recently refurbished Grade II listed Fry Building at the heart of the university campus.

Taking place over three days (in the Fry Building), this international conference features a distinguished line-up of speakers, covering a range of recent advances in number theory, combinatorics, algebra, geometry and logic.

Visit the event website to view the programme and to register.

Organisers:

David Ellis (Bristol)
Céline Maistret (Bristol)

Scientific committee:

David Ellis (Bristol) – Combinatorics section
Kentaro Fujimoto (Bristol) – Logic section
John Mackay (Bristol) – Geometry section
Céline Maistret (Bristol) – Number Theory section
Jeremy Rickard (Bristol) – Algebra section

Confirmed Speakers:

Jonathan Chapman (Bristol)
Ben Green (Oxford)
Scott Harper (St Andrews)
Alessandra Iozzi (ETH Zurich)
Franziska Jahnke (Muenster)
Autumn Kent (Wisconsin)
Jungwon Lee (Warwick)
Shoham Letzter (UCL)
Menachem Magidor (Jerusalem)
Irene Pasquinelli (Bristol)
Ross Paterson (Bristol)
Michael Rathjen (Leeds)
Aner Shalev (Jerusalem)
Donna Testerman (EPFL)
Jack Thorne (Cambridge)

Visit the event website to view the programme and to register.

We are very grateful indeed for financial support from the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the London Mathematical Society and the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Join the Heilbronn Event mailing list to keep up to date with our upcoming events.

Random matrices from quantum chaos to the Riemann zeta function. A celebration in honour of Jon Keating’s 60th birthday.

School of Mathematics, Fry Building, University of Bristol, UK

Random Matrix Theory (RMT) is ubiquitous in the mathematical and physical sciences because of its broad range of applications and its predictive power, which allow accurate calculations and asymptotic analysis that are not accessible through traditional techniques. The interdisciplinary nature of RMT is epitomized by Prof. Jon Keating’s career, which has been characterized by the rare ability of initiating new areas of research by bringing together areas of mathematics that on the surface have little in common. This conference will feature leading mathematicians working at the interface of quantum chaos, analytic number theory, probability and random matrix theory.

Visit the event website to view the programme and to register.

Organisers:
Emma Bailey (CUNY)
Tamara Grava (Bristol)
Francesco Mezzadri (Bristol)
Nina Snaith (Bristol)
Brian Winn (Loughborough)

Speakers:
Louis-Pierre Arguin (CUNY)
Emma Bailey (CUNY)
Michael Berry (Bristol)
Brian Conrey (AIM)
Neil O’Connell (UCD)
Persi Diaconis (Stanford)
Alexandra Florea (UC Irvine)
Yan Fyodorov (KCL)
Alice Guionnet (Lyon)
Alexander Its, (IUPUI)
Jens Marklof (Bristol)
Zeev Rudnick (Tel Aviv)
Peter Sarnak (Princeton)
Nick Simm (Sussex)
Kannan Soundararajan (Stanford)

Visit the event website to view the programme and to register.

We are very grateful indeed for financial support from the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the American Institute of Mathematics, and the London Mathematical Society.

If you have any questions, please contact heilbronn-coordinator@bristol.ac.uk.

Join the Heilbronn Event mailing list to keep up to date with our upcoming events.

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