Friday, February 22, 2008

seminars during Feb 25-29

We have five talks during the week Feb 25-29

1.
Colloquium talk:
----------------
Speaker: A. Joseph Kennedy
Title: Combinatorial Representation Theory
Date: February 26, 2008 (Tuesday)
Time: 4:30 to 5:30 pm
Venue: Ramanujan Hall

Abstract:

Let G be a group of linear transformations on a finite
dimensional vector space V. Then G acts diagonally on
V^k, the k-th tensor power of V. The basic problem is
to know how does V^k decompose into irreducible
representations of G. One way of studying this problem
is to consider the algebra of all linear
transformation on V^k that commute with the G-action,
called centralizer algebra of G. A large class of
Diagram algebras (whose basis consist of diagrams with
certain multiplication) arises in this way as the
centralizer algebras of different groups. This
provides the connection between the representation
theory and related combinatorics. The main part of
this talk is to discuss this aspect in detail.


2.
Seminar talk:
---------------
Speaker: A. Joseph Kennedy
Title: Partition Algebras
Date: February 28, 2008 (Thursday)
Time: Time 3 to 4 pm
venue: room no 105

Abstract:

In the early 1990's, the partition algebra appeared
independently in the works of P. Martin and V. F. R.
Jones. Their work on the partition algebra stemmed
from studies of Potts models and related problems in
statistical mechanics. In 1993, Jones considered the
partition algebra P_k(n) as the centralizer algebra of
the symmetric group S_n acting on V^k, where V is the
permutation module for S_n. This talk mainly
discusses the above work and its continuation by me.


3.
Popular Lecture Series Talk
----------------------------
Speaker: Professor Jaikumar Radhakrishnan
School of Technology and Computer Science
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
Title: List-decoding Reed-Solomon codes
Date: 29 February 2008
Time: 5:05-6 pm
Venue: Ramanujan Hall

Abstract: We will introduce the notion of list-decoding, and
discuss the list-decoding algorithms of Sudan, and Guruswami &
Sudan for list-decoding Reed-Solomon codes. We will then describe
some results on the limits of list-decoding. The talk will
involve mainly linear algebra and should be accessible to a
general mathematical audience.

4&5.
Year-Long Programme in Topology
-------------------------------
Speaker : A.R. Shastri,
Topic : 3 - manifolds,
venue : room no 113,
Days : Monday (25/02/2008) and Wednesday (27/02/2008)
Time : 5:15 - 6:15 pm

Thanks

Tony J. Puthenpurakal
Convener
SCC