Speaker: Linda Chen, Swarthmore College

Title: Modern Techniques for Counting Curves

Abstract: Mathematicians have long been interested in counting the number of geometric objects which satisfy various conditions. A breakthrough occurred in the 1990's, inspired by ideas in physics, leading to surprising and beautiful recursions, for example for the number of degree d rational plane curves passing through 3d-1 general points. I will give a basic mathematical introduction to these tools of Gromov-Witten theory and quantum cohomology, discuss related developments such as orbifold versions of the theories, and describe more applications to classical problems in enumerative geometry.

Graduate students are encouraged to attend.

Place: Science and Technology Building I, Room 242

Refreshments will be served before the talk at 3:00 p.m. in Room 222.

Department of Mathematical Sciences
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MS 3F2
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
http://math.gmu.edu/
Tel. 703-993-1460, Fax. 703-993-1491