Pratima Hebbar, Probability Seminar on October 21, 2021

Let G be the group of rational points of a linear algebraic group over a local field. A representation of G is distinguished by a subgroup H if it admits a non-zero H-invariant linear form. A Galois symmetric pair (G,H) is such that H=Y(F) and G=Y(E) where E/F is a quadratic extension of local fields and Y is a reductive group defined over F. In this talk we show that for a Galois symmetric pair, often the necessary condition for H-distinction of a parabolically induced representation, emerging from the geometric lemma of Berenstein-Zelevinsky, are also sufficient. In particular, we obtain a characterization of H-distinguished representations induced from cuspidal in terms of distinction of the inducing data. We explicate these results further when Y is a classical group and point out some global applications for Galois distinguished automorphic representations of SO(2n+1). This is joint work with Nadir Matringe.

Quaternionic automorphic representations are one attempt to generalize to other groups the special place holomorphic modular forms have among automorphic representations of GL2. Like holomorphic modular forms, they are defined by having their real component be one of a particularly nice class (in this case, called quaternionic discrete series). We count quaternionic automorphic representations on the exceptional group G2 by developing a G2 version of the classical Eichler-Selberg trace formula for holomorphic modular forms. There are two main technical difficulties. First, quaternionic discrete series come in L-packets with non-quaternionic members and standard invariant trace formula techniques cannot easily distinguish between discrete series with real component in the same L-packet. Using the more modern stable trace formula resolves this issue. Second, quaternionic discrete series do not satisfy a technical condition of being "regular", so the trace formula can a priori pick up unwanted contributions from automorphic representations with non-tempered components at infinity. Applying some computations of Mundy, this miraculously does not happen for our specific case of quaternionic representations on G2. Finally, we are only studying level-1 forms, so we can apply some tricks of Chenevier and Taïbi to reduce the problem to counting representations on the compact form of G2 and certain pairs of modular forms. This avoids involved computations on the geometric side of the trace formula.

David Aldous, Probability Seminar Sept 30, 2021 TITLE: Can one prove existence of an infectiousness threshold (for a pandemic) in very general models of disease spread? ABSTRACT: Intuitively, in any kind of disease transmission model with an infectiousness parameter, there should exist a critical value of the parameter separating a very likely from a very unlikely resulting pandemic. But even formulating a general conjecture is challenging. In the most simplistic model (SI) of transmission, one can prove this for an essentially arbitrary large weighted contact network. The proof for SI depends on a simple lemma concerning hitting times for increasing set-valued Markov processes. Can one extend to SIR or SIS models over similarly general networks, where the lemma is no longer applicable?

Let F be a non-archimedean local field (such as ℚ_p). The Langlands philosophy says that the arithmetic of F is intimately related to the category R(G) of smooth complex representations of G(F) where G denotes a reductive F-group (for example the general linear group). The building blocks of R(G) are the "supercuspidal" representations of G(F). I will define this term in the talk. The category R(G) comes equipped with an involution - the "contragradient" or the "dual". The supercuspidal representations of G(F) which are self-dual are of considerable interest in the subject. In this talk, I will talk about a joint work with Jeff Adler about the existence of supercuspidals and self-dual supercuspidals. Specifically, we show that G(F) always admits supercuspidal representations. Under some mild hypotheses on G, we determine precisely when G(F) admits self-dual supercuspidal representations. These results are obtained from analogous results for finite reductive groups which I will also talk about.

In the 1980’s, Greene defined hypergeometric functions over finite fields using Jacobi sums. The framework of his theory establishes that these functions possess many properties that are analogous to those of the classical hypergeometric series studied by Gauss and Kummer. These functions have played important roles in the study of Ap ́ery-style supercongruences, the Eichler-Selberg trace formula, Galois representations, and zeta-functions of arithmetic varieties. In this talk we discuss the distributions (over large finite fields) of natural families of these functions. For the 2F1 functions, the limiting distribution is semicircular, whereas the distribution for the 3F2 functions is the more exotic Batman distribution.

The ADM mass of an isolated gravitational system is a geometric invariant measuring the total mass due to matter and other fields. In a previous work, we showed how to compute this invariant (in 3 spatial dimensions) by studying harmonic functions. Now I'll use this formula to consider the question: How flat is an asymptotically flat manifold with very little total mass? In the presence of a lower bound on Ricci curvature, we make progress on this question and confirm special cases of conjectures made by Ilmanen and Sormani.

Hecke operators act on many invariants associated to modular curves and their generalizations. For example, they act on modular forms and on cohomology groups of modular curves. In each of these cases, they generate a semi-simple, commutative algebra. In the first part of this talk, I will recall (in friendly, elementary, geometric terms) what Hecke operators are and how they act on the standard invariants. I will then show that they also act on loops in modular curves (aka, conjugacy classes in modular groups). In this case, the Hecke operators generate a non-commutative subalgebra of the vector space generated by the conjugacy classes, which leads to a very natural non-commutative generalization of the classical Hecke algebra. In the second part of the talk will discuss why one might want do construct such a Hecke action. As a prelude to this, I will explain why this Hecke action commutes with the natural action of the absolute Galois group after taking profinite completions. And, in the unlikely event that I have sufficient time, I will also explain how (after taking the appropriate completion) this Hecke action is also compatible with Hodge theory.

The colored Jones polynomials are conjectured to detect geometric information about knot complements, such as hyperbolic volume. These relationships ("volume conjectures") are known in a number of special cases but are in general quite mysterious. In this talk I will discuss a program to better understand them by constructing holonomy invariants, which depend on both a knot K and a representation of its knot group into SL_2(C). By defining a version of the Jones polynomial that knows about geometric data, we hope to better understand why the ordinary Jones polynomial does too. Along the way we can obtain more powerful quantum invariants of knots and other topological objects.

Talk given at SEPC 2021 in honor of Elizabeth Meckes

SEPC 2021 in honor of Elizabeth Meckes. Slides from the talks and more information are available <a href="https://services.math.duke.edu/~rtd/SEPC2021/SEPC2021.html">at this link (here).</a>

SEPC 2021 in honor of Elizabeth Meckes. Slides from the talks and more information are available <a href="https://services.math.duke.edu/~rtd/SEPC2021/SEPC2021.html">here</a>

Talk given at SEPC 2021 in honor of Elizabeth Meckes

Talk given at SEPC 2021 in honor of Elizabeth Meckes

Description of some work with Elizabeth Meckes at SEPC 2021

Talk given at SEPC 2021 in honor of Elizabeth Meckes

CR geometry studies real hypersurfaces in complex vector spaces and their generalizations, CR manifolds. In many cases of interest to complex analysis and PDE, CR manifolds can be considered ``curved versions" of homogeneous spaces according to Elie Cartan’s generalization of Klein’s Erlangen program. Which homogeneous space is the ``flat model" of a CR manifold depends on the Levi form, a tensor named after a mathematician who used it to characterize boundaries of pseudoconvex domains. As in the analytic setting, the Levi form plays a central role in the geometry of CR manifolds, which we explore in relation to their homogeneous models.

The problem of recovering a sparse Fourier signal from samples comes up in signal processing, imaging, NMR spectroscopy, and machine learning. Two major challenges involve dealing with off-grid frequencies, and dealing with signals lacking separation between frequencies. Without a minimum separation condition, the problem of frequency recovery is exponentially ill-conditioned, but the signal can still be efficiently recovered in an "improper" manner using an appropriate filter. I will explain such an algorithm for sparse Fourier recovery, and the theory behind why it works - involving some clever analytic inequalities for Fourier-sparse signals. Finally, I will discuss recent work with Xue Chen on applying these ideas to system identification. Identification of a linear dynamical system from partial observations is a fundamental problem in control theory. A natural question is how to do so with statistical rates depending on the inherent dimensionality (or order) of the system, akin to the sparsity of a signal. We solve this question by casting system identification as a "multi-scale" sparse Fourier recovery problem.

The cellular cytoskeleton is made up of protein polymers (filaments) that are essential in proper cell and neuronal function as well as in development. These filaments represent the roads along which most protein transport occurs inside cells. I will discuss several examples where questions about filament-cargo interactions require the development of novel mathematical modeling, analysis, and simulation. Protein cargoes such as neurofilaments and RNA molecules bind to and unbind from cellular roads called microtubules, switching between bidirectional transport, diffusion, and stationary states. Since these transport models can be analytically intractable, we have proposed asymptotic methods in the framework of partial differential equations and stochastic processes which are useful in understanding large-time transport properties. I will discuss a recent project where we use stochastic modeling to understand how filament orientations may influence sorting of cargo in dendrites during neural development and axonal injury.

There are a number of situations in which rescaled interacting particle systems have been shown to converge to a reaction diffusion equation (RDE) with a bistable reaction term. These RDEs have traveling wave solutions. When the speed of the wave is nonzero, block constructions have been used to prove the existence or nonexistence of nontrivial stationary distributions. Here, we follow the approach in a paper by Etheridge, Freeman, and Pennington to show that in a wide variety of examples when the RDE limit has a bistable reaction term and traveling waves have speed 0, one can run time faster and further rescale space to obtain convergence to motion by mean curvature. This opens up the possibility of proving that the sexual reproduction model with fast stirring has a discontinuous phase transition, and that in Region 2 of the phase diagram for the nonlinear voter model studied by Molofsky et al there were two nontrivial stationary distributions.