Painlevé VI: the search for canonical representations

Name: Painlevé VI: the search for canonical representations
Start: 2025-04-25T14:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-04-25T14:45:00+00:00
Location: Science Center 507

OTHER MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT EVENTS: SPECIAL LECTURE

When: April 25, 2025

2:00 pm - 2:45 pm

Where: Science Center 507

Address: 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States

Speaker: Aaron Landesman - Harvard University

In 1902, Painlevé introduced a collection of 6 differential equations of tremendous importance. Over the last hundred years, people have tried to find solutions to these equations. It turns out that algebraic solutions to Painlevé’s sixth equation correspond to canonical triples of 2 by 2 complex matrices. We will describe the history of what is known about these canonical tuples of matrices. This talk includes joint work with Josh Lam and Daniel Litt.