Algebra Seminar

Vasily Dolgushev, Temple University

In 1990, V. Drinfeld introduced the Grothendieck-Teichmueller group $GT$. This group receives a homomorphism from the absolute Galois group $G_Q$ of rational numbers, and this homomorphism is injective due to Belyi's theorem. In his 1990 ICM talk, Y. Ihara posed a very hard question about the surjectivity of this homomorphism from $G_Q$ to $GT$. In my talk, I will introduce the groupoid of $GT$-shadows and show how this groupoid is related to the group $GT$. I will formulate a version of Ihara's question for $GT$-shadows and describe a family of objects of the groupoid for which this question has a positive answer. My talk is loosely based on the joint paper with I. Bortnovskyi, B. Holikov and V. Pashkovskyi.

Yelena Mandelshtam, IAS Princeton

The Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equation is a partial differential equation whose study yields fascinating connections between integrable systems, algebraic geometry, and combinatorics. In this talk I will describe some of the various approaches to connecting KP solutions to algebraic objects such as algebraic curves (due to Krichever) and the positive Grassmannian (due to Sato and later Kodama-Williams). I will then discuss recent and ongoing work to build bridges between these approaches.

Group and Galois cohomology is an important tool that gets used in many areas of mathematics.  We will have a learning seminar on this topic this semester.  During this meeting we will explain a bit of the motivation for choosing this topic and assign topics for future talks.  If you are interested in giving a talk this semester, please attend this meeting!

Vasily Dolgushev, Temple University

GT-shadows are morphisms of a groupoid GTSh who objects are finite index $B_3$-invariant subgroups of the free group on two generators. They may be thought of as approximations of elements of the Grothendieck-Teichmueller group GT. After a brief reminder of the groupoid GTSh, I will introduce the dihedral poset as a concrete subposet of the poset of objects of GTSh. For every element of the dihedral poset, we will describe its connected component in the groupoid GTSh. We will use connected components of certain objects of the dihedral poset to produce the first examples of finite non-abelian quotients of GT. My talk is based on the joint paper with Ivan Bortnovskyi, Borys Holikov and Vadym Pashkovskyi.

Vasily A. Dolgushev, Temple University

Grothendieck's child's drawings (a.k.a. dessins d'enfant) connected topology to number theory in a fascinating way. In my first talk, I will present several equivalent definitions of a child's drawing. You will see permutation pairs, bipartite ribbon graphs and finite index subgroups of the free group on two generators. If time permits, I will start talking about Belyi pairs. The absolute Galois group of rational numbers acts on child's drawings and Belyi pairs allow us to introduce this action.   

Vasily Dolgushev, Temple University

I will introduce the action of the groupoid of GT-shadows on child's drawings and discuss how this is related to the action of the Grothendieck-Teichmueller group and the action of the absolute Galois group (of rational numbers) on child's drawings. My talk is loosely based on this paper.  If time permits, I will mention an open question motivated by the paper by J. Ellenberg.

Violet Nguyen, Temple University

This talk is the first in a series of seminar talks discussing Galois Cohomology. We will introduce profinite spaces, profinite groups, and discrete modules over profinite groups, which will be necessary in order to define their cohomology groups. We will end with the statement of Pontryagin duality, which naturally associates to each compact abelian group (and hence each profinite group) a discrete abelian group.

Holly Miller, Temple University

This talk is the second in a series of seminar talks discussing Galois Cohomology. The cohomology groups of a profinite group (with coefficients in a module over said group) will be introduced twice, first via inhomogeneous cochains and then through homogeneous cochains. The first method will be used to give interpretations for the cohomology groups of low dimension. The second will be used to show that these groups are limits of the cohomology groups of finite quotients of the profinite group in question. Lastly, the Tate cohomology -- which extends the usual cohomology -- will be discussed.

Sean O'Donnell, Temple University

This talk will introduce the long exact cohomology sequence and some basic theory surrounding it. We will begin by defining the cochain and cohomology functors, and then introduce the long exact sequence and discuss its naturality. The structure of this exact sequence will motivate us to investigate acyclic, cohomologically trivial, and induced modules, which we will then use to introduce the technique of dimension shifting. During this, we will also discuss the application of these structures to the cohomology of Galois groups acting on the additive groups of their relevant fields.

Chathumini Kondasinghe, Temple University

This talk aims to explore how long exact sequences of group cohomology provide insights into field theory and elliptic curves. We begin with a proof of Hilbert's theorem 90, and then use the long exact sequence of Galois cohomology to establish Kummer theory for fields. In the second half, we will talk about the idea that goes into the proof of the weak Mordell-Weil theorem, a finiteness result for elliptic curves.