Graduate Seminar

Current contact: Rebekah Palmer and Timothy Morris

The seminar takes place on Fridays (from 2:30-3:30pm) in Room 617 on the sixth floor of Wachman Hall. Pizza and refreshments are available beforehand in the lounge next door.

  • Friday February 2, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    Jones polynomial as a quantum invariant

    Zachary Cline, Temple University

    There is a cool construction of a variant of this polynomial which is instructive and which anyone remotely interested in knot theory should see at least once in their life. I will present this construction and then explain how this polynomial invariant arises as a functor from the tangle category to the category of vector spaces over C

  • .
  • Friday February 9, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    Random graphs and surfaces

    Thomas Ng, Temple University

    We will describe a model introduced by Bollob\'as for random finite k-regular graph. In the case when k=3, we will discuss connections with two constructions of random Riemann surfaces introduced by Buser and Brooks-Makover. Along the way, we will see a glimpse of the space of metrics on a surface (Teichmuller space) and (ideal) triangulations.

  • Friday February 16, 2018 at 16:00, Rm 617

    Numerical linear algebra: the hidden math in everything

    Kathryn Lund, Temple University

  • Friday February 16, 2018 at 16:30, Rm 617

    Building blocks for low-dimensional manifolds

    Thomas Ng, Temple University

  • Friday March 16, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    Eigenvalues of analytic kernels

    Narek Hovsepyan, Temple University

    It is shown that the eigenvalues of an analytic kernel on a finite interval go to zero at least as fast as $R^{ - n} $ for some fixed $R < 1$.

  • . The best possible value of R is related to the domain of analyticity of the kernel. The method is to apply the Weyl–Courant minimax principle to the tail of the Chebyshev expansion for the kernel. An example involving Legendre polynomials is given for which R is critical.

    Reference - G. Little, J. B. Reade, Eigenvalues of analytic kernels , SIAM J. Math. Anal., 15(1), 1984, 133–136.

  • Friday March 23, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    The tree for SL(2)

    Khanh Le, Temple University

  • Friday March 30, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    A gentle foray into quaternion algebras

    Rebekah Palmer, Temple University

    In 1843, Hamilton carved "$i^2=j^2=k^2=ijk=-1$"

into a bridge in Dublin after a spark of inspiration while on a walk. His original intention was to make the complex numbers C more complex (it worked). The restriction to −1

  • has since then been loosened in favor of generalization, known as quaternion algebras. We'll explore some introductory facts and see how these constructions occur in geometry.
  • Friday April 13, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    TBA

    Geoff Schneider

  • Friday April 20, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    Introduction to the generalized law of reflection/refraction

    Luca Pallucchini, Temple University

  • Friday April 27, 2018 at 11:00, Rm 617

    Incompressible surfaces in 4-punctured sphere bundles

    Sunny Yang Xiao, Brown University

  • Friday August 31, 2018 at 13:30, Wachman 617

    Welcome back and info seminar

    We will be doing introductions for the new grad students, have a small presentation from TUGSA, playing board games, and eating pizza!

  • Friday September 7, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Conway's ZIP proof of the Classification of Surfaces

    Tim Morris, Temple University

    We present John Conway's proof of the classification of surfaces. This proof, is considered by many to capture the essence an simplicity of purely topological arguments. So, naturally we will include many pictures to help aid our intuition. This talk will be accessible for all graduate students.

  • Friday September 14, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Mathematical Modeling of Biofilm in Marble Environment

    Yilin Wu, Temple University

    Bacterial biofilms are defined as clusters of bacterial cells living in the self-produced extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), and always attached to various kinds of surfaces, such as tissues, solid surfaces, or cells. Biofilms can be formed of a population that developed from a single species or a community derived from multiple microbial species. I will give a brief introduction to the biofilm living environment on marble with a mathematical approach.

     

  • Friday September 21, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Interpolation, Recovery, and Extrapolation

    Narek Hosyepyan, Temple University

    We will discuss some interpolation formulae, such as Pick interpolation, recovery formulae for analytic functions from pieces of their boundary or interior data, and some aspects of the question of their extrapolation.

  • Friday October 5, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Quantum Symmetries

    Zach Cline, Temple University

  • Friday October 12, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Classifying Group Elements by their Dynamics on Boundaries

    Thomas Ng, Temple University

    One incredibly fruitful means of understand an infinite group is to realize it as a subgroup of an isometry group of some unbounded metric space. In the setting of fundamental groups of Riemann manifolds, this metric space can be taken to be the universal cover. Not all group elements are created equal. Some elements may have finite order any others may have cyclic centralizers. We will study geometric characteristics of the action of each group element to see that much of this information can be We will consider a few foundational examples from topology to guide us in a tour through various notions of boundary for unbounded metric spaces and try to understand in which settings each is most useful.

  • Friday October 19, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Mathematical and Molecular Modeling of Flow-Sensitive Biopolymers

    Michael Morabito, Lehigh University

    von Willebrand Factor (vWF) is a large multimeric protein found in blood plasma. vWF plays an indispensable role in the blood clotting process by initiation of clot formation that stops bleeding due to vascular damage. vWF is able to sense elevated hydrodynamic force in blood flow at the site of vessel hemorrhage, and respond by undergoing conformational changes. Understanding the functionality of this flow-sensitive biological polymer requires interdisciplinary collaboration. The dynamics and mechanical response behavior of vWF can be probed using coarse-grained Brownian molecular dynamics simulations. The mathematical foundations of this method will be presented, and simulation results for vWF in shearing flows will be discussed. Simulation and experimental results are also used as input to machine learning algorithms, which have proven to be powerful data-driven analysis tools for this bioinformatics application.

  • Friday October 26, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    A flavor of complex dynamics

    Tantrik Mukerji, Temple University

    This will be a light-hearted survey of complex dynamics where we'll touch on some relevant objects of study within the field. This talk will be intuitive and interactive with demonstrations.

  • Friday November 2, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    An Introduction to Geometric Structures

    Khánh Lê, Temple University

    Manifolds arise in nature and in mathematics in many different ways. Fairly frequently, they come equipped with some special patterns. In this talk, we will present different constructions of manifolds. We will then discuss how certain patterns of manifolds can be used as building blocks for different structures.

  • Friday November 9, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    No Seminar

    NA Day, learn about Numerical Analysis!

  • Friday November 16, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Title TBA

    James Rosado, Temple University

  • Friday November 30, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Title TBA

    Ben Stucky, University of Oklahoma

  • Friday December 7, 2018 at 14:30, Wachman 617

    Title TBA

    Luca Pallucchini, Temple University