TQFT Club Meeting 8-Apr-1999

Note:

Exceptionally, we are organizing the April Meeting of the TQFT club at Complexo Interdisciplinar of the University of Lisbon (Av. Prof Gama Pinto 2, 1649-003 LISBOA), where the afternoon's proceedings will take place (so that participants can attend the colloquium by Fields medallist Efim Zelmanov on "What makes a group finite?")


12.15 Lunch at the Cafeteria of Complexo Interdisciplinar of the Univ. of Lisbon

Afternoon Session

Room B1-01 of Complexo Interdisciplinar of the University of Lisbon

13.40 - 14.40 (Algebraic geometry and integrable systems - 4th session) José Mourão (Instituto Superior Técnico)

"Moduli space of curves, abelian integrals and integrable systems"

Summary: We describe Krichever and Phong's space of "geometric data" wchich consists of specific bundles over the moduli space of curves. These bundles are foliated in a natural way by symplectic manifolds which have the structure of completely integrable systems (with a natural system of action-angle variables). It turns out that many of the known integrable systems fall into this category. We also describe the role of the Whitham hierarchy in this context.

References:

14.50 - 15.50 (Seminar) Michael Paluch (Instituto Superior Técnico)

"Elliptic Spectra and the Witten Genus"

Summary: Genus is a rule which assigns to a closed oriented manifold M a complex number G(M); in addtion G sends disjoint unions to sums, products to products, and is a cobordism invariant. Thus G is a ring homomorphism from Thom´s oriented cobordism ring to the complex numbers. One example of a genus is the Witten genus, and it can be realized as a map of ring spectra.

References:

16.00 - 17.00 We plan to attend the colloquium by Fields medallist Efim Zelmanov on "What makes a group finite?" organized by the Mathematics Department of Lisbon University at the Anfiteatro of Complexo Interdisciplinar.

17.00 - 17.30 Tea at the Bar of Complexo Interdisciplinar of the Univ. of Lisbon

DATE: Thursday, 8/04/99

VENUE: Room B1-01 of Complexo Interdisciplinar of the University of Lisbon

URL: http://www.math.ist.utl.pt/~rpicken/tqft

picken@math.ist.utl.pt