Symplectic embedding problems and algebraic curves

Grigory Mikhalkin • Université de Genève

From March 1 the lectures will take place at M&CS department (14th Line 29B, Vasilyevsky Island), room 201. The lectures are on Tuesdays, starting from 13:40.

The course will review several geometric discoveries made in different mathematical domains in different times, from the 19th to the 21st century. The central theme for the course will be played by the celebrated symplectic camel theorem of Gromov, as well as some related results on non-squeezing and packing. These statements can be formulated in terms of topology of the space of symplectic embeddings of one phase space into another. In 1985 Gromov has introduced the exceptionally powerful technique of pseudoholomorphic curves. It serves as the main working tool in modern symplectic geometry. In some cases, this technique can be used to reduce symplectic problems to classical enumerative geometry of genuine algebraic curves and their logarithmic images known as amoebas. In their turn, these considerations lead us to tropical geometry.

Additional information as well as updates on the schedule may be found here.

This lecture course is a part of the thematic program “New Trends in Topology“.
If you plan to attend lecture courses of the thematic program please register.