# All Upcoming Events

On Monday at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the String Theory series:
Philip Candelas (Oxford)
Geometry and Arithmetic of Two One-Parameter Special Geometries
Further information: Recently, as part of a project to find CY manifolds for which both the Hodge numbers (h^{11}, h^{21}) are small, manifolds have been found with Hodge numbers (4,1) and (1,1). The one-dimensional special geometries of their complex structures are more complicated than those previously studied. I will review these, emphasising the role of the fundamental period and Picard-Fuchs equation. Two arithmetic aspects arise: the first is the role of \zeta(3) in the monodromy matrices and the second is the fact, perhaps natural to a number theorist, that through a study of the CY manifolds over finite fields, modular functions can be associated to the singular manifolds of the family. This is a report on joint work with Volker Braun, Xenia de la Ossa and Duco van Straten.
On Monday at 14:15 in L4, a seminar in the Geometry and Analysis series:
Philip Boalch (Orsay)
Non-perturbative symplectic manifolds and non-commutative algebras
Further information: From a geometric viewpoint the irregular Riemann-Hilbert correspondence can be viewed as a machine that takes as input a simple additive' symplectic/Poisson manifold and it outputs a more complicated multiplicative' symplectic/Poisson manifold. In the simplest nontrivial example it converts the linear Poisson manifold Lie(G)^* into the dual Poisson Lie group G^* (which is the Poisson manifold underlying the Drinfeld-Jimbo quantum group). This talk will firstly describe some more recent (and more complicated) examples of such nonperturbative symplectic/Poisson manifolds', i.e. symplectic spaces of Stokes/monodromy data or wild character varieties'. Then the natural generalisations (fission algebras') of the deformed multiplicative preprojective algebras that occur will be discussed, some of which are known to be related to Cherednik algebras.
On Tuesday at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the Relativity series:
Dr Maciej Dunajski (Cambridge)
Newtonian twistor theory
On Tuesday at 14:00 in L4, a seminar in the Algebraic and Symplectic Geometry series:
Artan Sheshmani (Ohio State)
On the proof of the S-duality modularity conjecture for the quintic threefold
Further information: I will talk about recent joint work with Amin Gholampour, Richard Thomas and Yukinobu Toda, on an algebraic-geometric proof of the S-duality conjecture in superstring theory, made formerly by physicists Gaiotto, Strominger, Yin, regarding the modularity of DT invariants of sheaves supported on hyperplane sections of the quintic Calabi-Yau threefold. Our strategy is to first use degeneration and localization techniques to reduce the threefold theory to a certain intersection theory over relative Hilbert scheme of points on surfaces and then prove modularity; More precisely, together with Gholampour we have proven that the generating series, associated to the top intersection numbers of the Hibert scheme of points, relative to an effective divisor, on a smooth quasi-projective surface is a modular form. This is a generalization of the result of Okounkov-Carlsson for absolute Hilbert schemes. These intersection numbers, together with the generating series of Noether-Lefschetz numbers, will provide the ingrediants to prove modularity of the above DT invariants over the quintic threefold.
On Tuesday at 15:45 in L4, a seminar in the Algebraic and Symplectic Geometry series:
Andrew Morrison (ETH Zurich)
Motives over Abelian geometries via relative power structures
Further information: We describe the cohomology of moduli spaces of points on schemes over Abelian varieties and give explicit calculations for schemes in dimensions less that three. The construction of Gulbrandsen allows one to consider virtual motives in dimension three. In particular we see a new proof of his conjectures on the Euler numbers of generalized Kummer schemes recently proven by Shen. Joint work in progress with Junliang Shen.
On Wednesday at 17:00 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Philip Candelas (Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford)
The Dennis Sciama Memorial Lecture: Simple Calabi-Yau Manifolds and the Landscape of String Vacua
On Thursday at 13:00 in Dalitz Institute, DWB, a seminar in the Particle Phenomenology Forum series:
James Scoville (University of Oxford)
TBC
On Thursday at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Ben Allanach (DAMTP Cambridge)
LHC Run II anomalies with leptons and jets ... and new physics
On Friday at 14:00 in Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Theoretical Physics Colloquia series:
Andre Lukas (Oxford)
String Theory and the Standard Model - a Challenge in Physics and Mathematics
On Friday at 16:30 in L1, a seminar in the Math Colloquium series:
Martin Hairer (University of Warwick)
Taming infinities
Further information: Some physical and mathematical theories have the unfortunate feature that if one takes them at face value, many quantities of interest appear to be infinite! Various techniques, usually going under the common name of “renormalisation” have been developed over the years to address this, allowing mathematicians and physicists to tame these infinities. We will tip our toes into some of the mathematical aspects of these techniques and we will see how they have recently been used to make precise analytical statements about the solutions of some equations whose meaning was not even clear until recently.
On Tuesday, May 5, at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the Relativity series:
Dr James Drummond (Southampton & CERN)
TBA
On Tuesday, May 5, at 14:00 in Fisher Room, DWB, a seminar in the Holography series:
Mario Flory (Max Planck Institute Munich)
Entanglement Entropy in a Holographic Model of the Kondo Effect
On Tuesday, May 5, at 15:45 in L4, a seminar in the Algebraic and Symplectic Geometry series:
Diane Maclagan (University of Warwick)
TBA
On Thursday, May 7, at 13:00 in Dalitz Institute, DWB, a seminar in the Particle Phenomenology Forum series:
Adam Brown (Stanford University)
Mining Black Holes (TBC)
On Thursday, May 7, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
TBA (TBA)
TBA
On Friday, May 8, at 16:15 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Presented by Professor Jose Latorre (Benasque Centre for Science, Spain)
Documentary: 'That's the Story' Prof Roy J Glauber remembers the making of the atomic bomb
On Monday, May 11, at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the String Theory series:
Ruth Gregory (Durham)
TBA
On Monday, May 11, at 14:15 in L4, a seminar in the Geometry and Analysis series:
Mark Haskins (Imperial College)
New G2 holonomy cones and exotic nearly Kähler structures on compact 6-manifolds
Further information: A long-standing problem in almost complex geometry has been the question of existence of (complete) inhomogeneous nearly Kahler 6-manifolds. One of the main motivations for this question comes from $G_2$ geometry: the Riemannian cone over a nearly Kahler 6-manifold is a singular space with holonomy $G_2$. Viewing Euclidean 7-space as the cone over the round 6-sphere, the induced nearly Kahler structure is the standard $G_2$-invariant almost complex structure on the 6-sphere induced by octonionic multiplication. We resolve this problem by proving the existence of exotic (inhomogeneous) nearly Kahler metrics on the 6-sphere and also on the product of two 3-spheres. This is joint work with Lorenzo Foscolo, Stony Brook.
On Tuesday, May 12, at 12:00 in L4, a seminar in the Quantum Field Theory series:
Krzysztof Meissner (Warsaw)
to be announced
On Thursday, May 14, at 13:00 in Dalitz Institute, DWB, a seminar in the Particle Phenomenology Forum series:
Jeppe Nielsen (Niels Bohr Institute)
TBC
On Thursday, May 14, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Simon Badger (University of Edinburgh)
Automating QCD amplitudes for the LHC
On Friday, May 15, at 14:00 in Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Theoretical Physics Colloquia series:
Pasquale Blasi (Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory)
tba
On Friday, May 15, at 16:30 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Charles Kane (University of Pennsylvania)
The Cherwell Simon Memorial Lecture: Topological Boundary Modes from Quantum Electronics to Classical Mechanics
On Monday, May 18, at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the String Theory series:
Chris Hull (Imperial College)
TBA
On Monday, May 18, at 14:15 in L4, a seminar in the Geometry and Analysis series:
tba
On Tuesday, May 19, at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the Relativity series:
Eduardo Casali (Cambridge)
TBA
On Tuesday, May 19, at 14:45 , a seminar in the Quantum Field Theory series:
Ioannis Zois (American College of Greece)
Towards noncommutative topological quantum field theories: a Hodge theorem for tangential cohomology
On Thursday, May 21, at 13:00 in Dalitz Institute, DWB, a seminar in the Particle Phenomenology Forum series:
Marco Bonvini (University of Oxford)
TBC
On Thursday, May 21, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Timo Weigand (University of Heidelberg)
Towards the Standard Model in F-theory
Further information: arXiv:1406.6071
On Friday, May 22, at 16:15 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Jo Dunkley (University of Oxford)
Cosmology from the Microwave Background
On Friday, May 22, at 16:30 in L1, a seminar in the Math Colloquium series:
Professor Andre Henriques (Universiteit Utrecht)
Bott Periodicity and Beyond
Further information: I will review Bott's classical periodicity result about topological K-theory (with period 2 in the case of complex K-theory, and period 8 in the case of real K-theory), and provide an easy sketch of proof, based on the algebraic periodicity of Clifford algebras. I will then introduce the higher real K-theory' of Hopkins and Miller, also known as TMF. I'll discuss its periodicity (with period 576), and present a conjecture about a corresponding algebraic periodicity of `higher Clifford algebras'. Finally, applications to physics will be discussed.
On Thursday, May 28, at 13:00 in Dalitz Institute, DWB, a seminar in the Particle Phenomenology Forum series:
Thomas Blake & Ulrich Haisch (University of Warwick & University of Oxford)
Anomalous B decays (TBC)
On Thursday, May 28, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Pat Scott (Imperial College)
Asymmetric dark matter in the Sun
Further information: arXiv:1411.6626
On Friday, May 29, at 14:00 in Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Theoretical Physics Colloquia series:
Marc Mezard (ENS, Paris)
tba
On Friday, May 29, at 16:15 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Cary Forest (Madison Physics Department, University of Wisconsin)
Chasing Fast Dynamos in the Plasma Lab
On Monday, June 1, at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the String Theory series:
Matthias Wilhelm (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
TBA
On Monday, June 1, at 14:15 in L4, a seminar in the Geometry and Analysis series:
Henry Schenck (Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Geometry of generalized barycentric coordinates
On Tuesday, June 2, at 12:00 in L4, a seminar in the Quantum Field Theory series:
Sylvie Paycha (Potsdam)
Renormalisation and the Euler-Maclaurin formula on cones
Further information: [based on joint work with Li Guo and  Bin Zhang]  We apply to  the study of exponential sums on lattice points in convex rational polyhedral cones, the generalised algebraic approach of Connes and Kreimer to  perturbative quantum field theory.  For this purpose we equip the space of    cones   with a connected coalgebra structure. The  algebraic Birkhoff factorisation of Connes and Kreimer   adapted  and generalised to this context then gives rise to a convolution factorisation of exponential sums on lattice points in cones. We show that this factorisation coincides with the classical Euler-Maclaurin formula generalised to convex rational polyhedral cones by Berline and Vergne by means of  an interpolating holomorphic function. We define  renormalised conical zeta values at non-positive integers as the Taylor coefficients at zero of the interpolating holomorphic function.  When restricted to Chen cones, this  yields yet another way to renormalise multiple zeta values  at non-positive integers.
On Thursday, June 4, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Mustafa Amin (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge)
TBA
On Friday, June 5, at 16:15 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Stephen Briggs (European Space Agency, Harwell Oxford)
Climate Observations from Space
On Monday, June 8, at 14:15 in L4, a seminar in the Geometry and Analysis series:
M S Narasimhan (TIFR Bangalore)
The derived category of moduli spaces of vector bundles on curves
Further information: Let X be a smooth projective curve (of genus greater than or equal to 2) over C and M the moduli space of vector bundles over X, of rank 2 and with fixed determinant of degree 1.Then the Fourier-Mukai functor from the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on X to that of M, given by the normalised Poincare bundle, is fully faithful, except (possibly) for hyperelliptic curves of genus 3,4,and 5  This result is proved by establishing precise vanishing theorems for a family of vector bundles on the moduli space M.  Results on the deformation  and inversion of Picard bundles (already known) follow from the full faithfulness of the F-M functor
On Tuesday, June 9, at 14:00 in DWB, Fisher Room, a seminar in the Holography series:
Ayan Mukhopadhyay (U. Crete)
Semi-Holography for QCD
On Tuesday, June 9, at 15:45 in L4, a seminar in the Algebraic and Symplectic Geometry series:
Valeri Alexeev (University of Georgia)
TBA
On Thursday, June 11, at 13:00 in Dalitz Institute, DWB, a seminar in the Particle Phenomenology Forum series:
Andrea Ferroglia (New York City College of Technology)
TBC
On Thursday, June 11, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Paul McFadden (Imperial College, London)
Soft limits in holographic cosmology
On Friday, June 12, at 14:00 in Dennis Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Theoretical Physics Colloquia series:
Israel Klich (Virginia)
tba
On Friday, June 12, at 16:15 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Swapan Chattopadhyay (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Northern Illinois University)
Title tbc
On Monday, June 15, at 14:15 in L4, a seminar in the Geometry and Analysis series:
Cristiano Spotti (Cambridge)
tba
On Tuesday, June 16, at 12:00 in L5, a seminar in the Relativity series:
Chris White (Glasgow)
TBA
On Thursday, June 18, at 16:15 in Sciama Lecture Theatre, a seminar in the Particles and fields series:
Biagio Lucini (University of Swansea)
Non-perturbative determinations of the spectrum and anomalous dimensions in near-conformal gauge theories
On Friday, June 19, at 16:30 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory, a seminar in the Colloquia series:
Professor Peter Webster (Georgia Institute of Technology)
The Halley Lecture: Understanding the Monsoon
On Friday, June 19, at 16:30 in L1, a seminar in the Math Colloquium series:
Gunnar Carlsson (Stanford University)
The Shape of Data
Further information: There has been a great deal of attention paid to 'Big Data' over the last few years.  However, often as not, the problem with the analysis of data is not as much the size as the complexity of the data.  Even very small data sets can exhibit substantial complexity.  There is therefore a need for methods for representing complex data sets, beyond the usual linear or even polynomial models.  The mathematical notion of shape, encoded in a metric, provides a very useful way to represent complex data sets.  On the other hand, Topology is the mathematical sub discipline which concerns itself with studying shape, in all dimensions.  In recent years, methods from topology have been adapted to the study of data sets, i.e. finite metric spaces.  In this talk, we will discuss what has been done in this direction and what the future might hold, with numerous examples.
On Friday, November 20, at 16:30 in L1, a seminar in the Math Colloquium series:
Professor Felix Otto (Max-Plank-Institute)
tba
On Friday, January 29, at 16:30 in L1, a seminar in the Math Colloquium series:
Mark Newman (Univ. of Michigan)
tba
On Friday, June 3, at 16:30 in L1, a seminar in the Math Colloquium series:
Professor Bernd Sturmfels (UC Berkeley)
tba