Calendar

I’ll discuss a curious correspondence between the m=2 amplituhedron, a 2k-dimensional subset of Gr(k, k+2), and the hypersimplex, an (n-1)-dimensional polytope in R^n. The amplituhedron and hypersimplex are both images of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian under some map (the amplituhedron map and the moment map, respectively), but are different dimensions and live in very different ambient spaces. I’ll talk about joint work with Matteo Parisi and Lauren Williams in which we give a bijection between decompositions of the amplituhedron and decompositions of the hypersimplex (originally conjectured by Lukowski–Parisi–Williams). Along the way, we prove the sign-flip description of the m=2 amplituhedron conjectured by Arkani-Hamed–Thomas–Trnka and give a new decomposition of the m=2 amplituhedron into Eulerian-number-many chambers (inspired by an analogous hypersimplex decomposition).

https://harvard.zoom.us/j/94191911494?pwd=RnN3ZnIwcFYwd0QyT0MwZWVISmR5Zz09

Password: 1251442

I will present a four-term exact sequence relating the cohomology of a fibration to the cohomology of an open set obtained by removing the preimage of a general linear section of the base. This exact sequence respects three filtrations, the Hodge, weight, and perverse Leray filtrations, so that it is an exact sequence of mixed Hodge structures on the graded pieces of the perverse Leray filtration. I claim that this sequence should be thought of as a mirror to the Clemens-Schmid sequence describing the structure of a degeneration and formulate a “mirror P=W” conjecture relating the filtrations on each side. Finally, I will present evidence for this conjecture coming from the K3 surface setting. This is joint work with Charles F. Doran.

https://harvard.zoom.us/j/98781914555?pwd=bmVzZGdlRThyUDREMExab20ybmg1Zz09

The layered honeycomb magnet alpha-RuCl3 orders below 7 K in a zigzag phase in zero field. An in-plane magnetic field H||a suppresses the zigzag order at 7 Tesla, leaving a spin-disordered phase widely believed to be a quantum spin liquid (QSL) that extends to ~12 T. We have observed oscillations in the longitudinal thermal conductivity Kxx vs. H from 0.4 to 4 K. The oscillations are periodic in 1/H (with a break-in-slope at 7 T). The amplitude function is maximal in the QSL phase (7 –11.5 T). I will describe a benchmark for crystalline disorder, the reproducibility and intrinsic nature of the oscillations, and discuss implications for the QSL state. I will also show detailed data on the thermal Hall conductivity Kxy measured from 0.4 K to 10 K and comment on recent half-quantization results.

*Czajka et al., Nature Physics 17, 915 (2021).

Collaborators: Czajka, Gao, Hirschberger, Lampen Kelley, Banerjee, Yan, Mandrus and Nagler.

https://harvard.zoom.us/j/977347126
 Password: cmsa

I will explain a conjecture on density of arithmetic Hodge loci which includes and generalizes several recent density results of these loci in arithmetic geometry. This conjecture has also analogues over functions fields that I will survey. As a particular instance, I will outline the proof of the following result: a K3 surface over a number field admits infinitely many specializations where its Picard rank jumps. This last result is joint work with Ananth Shankar, Arul Shankar and Yunqing Tang.

The field of Geometric Set Theory studies structures on sets of countable objects (typically Polish spaces) by considering virtual objects, typically uncountable sets representing members of the space under consideration in some larger model of set theory. This approach can be used to study analytic equivalence relations on Polish spaces, where the virtual objects represent equivalence classes. The representatives of the virtual classes can be used for instance to prove non-reducibility results between such equivalence relations. Another set of applications involves separating forms of the Axiom of Choice, specifically forms asserting the existence of a set of reals with certain first order properties. Typical examples include Vitali sets, Hamel bases, discontinuous homomorphisms on the real line or countable colorings of various graphs on Euclidean space. We will give a brief tour of some of the landmarks in the area, and discuss some directions for further research.