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Thematic programs 2022

Each calendar year Leonhard Euler International Mathematical Institute hosts thematic programs gathering recognized experts in the respective fields as well as early career researchers and postdocs to carry out investigations with a special emphasis on collaborative activities. Every program features a summer school as well as one or two conferences or workshops. The stays of the visitors and speakers are fully or partially financially covered by the Institute.

The themes of the programs are open to suggestion via the application process. The selection criteria for accepting a proposal are its scientific strength and the degree to which the program would benefit mathematical research and post-graduate training in the Russian Federation.

Moduli Spaces, Combinatorics and Poisson Geometry [THE PROGRAM IS PARTLY SUSPENDED]

November 2021 – August 2022 (partly rescheduled from 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic)

Organizers:

Dmitry Korotkin, Concordia University and Centre de Recherches Mathématiques
Peter Zograf, PDMI RAS and St. Petersburg University

Moduli spaces have many non-trivial connections to other areas of mathematics: combinatorics, dynamics, integrable systems and Poisson geometry, to name a few. Among most celebrated results over the last 30 years one can mention several proofs of Witten’s conjecture about intersection numbers of ψ-classes (Kontsevich, Mirzakhani and others), computation of Euler’s characteristics of moduli spaces (Harer-Zagier), development of the higher Teichmüller theory (Fock, Goncharov) and its links with cluster algebras and associated Poisson structures (Fomin, Zelevinsky). The research problems central for the program are:

  • Establishing a relationship between meandric systems (pairs of transversal multicurves) on higher genus surfaces and square-tiled surfaces.
  • Study of the large genus asymptotics of the numbers of meandric systems of given topological type.
  • Computation of Masur-Veech volumes of lower dimensional strata in the moduli space of quadratic differentials.
  • Obtaining a relation of the distribution of geodesic multicurves to Masur-Veech volumes.
  • Establishing a relation between Joyce’s structures by Bridgeland to Frobenius manifolds and topological recursion formalism.
  • Description the complete WKB expansion of the generating function of monodromy symplectomorphism for second order differential equations on Riemann surfaces with second order poles
    and establishing the link to topological recursion formalism.
  • Application of the WKB formalism to general isomonodromic tau-function and embed it into the topological recursion framework. Generalization to higher genus using the formalism of Krichever and Bertola-Malgrange.
  • Construction of the dilogarithm line bundle over SL(2, R) cluster variety associated to the canonical symplectic form over the moduli spaces of bordered Riemann surfaces; description of the Bohr-Sommerfeld symplectic leaves and their quantization.

The following activities will be organized during the program:

    New Trends in Topology [THE PROGRAM IS PARTLY SUSPENDED]

    February 1 – June 30, 2022

    Organizers:

    Evgeny Fominykh, St. Petersburg University
    Ilia Itenberg, Sorbonne University
    Viatcheslav Kharlamov, Université de Strasbourg
    Vladimir Turaev, Indiana University
    Oleg Viro, Stony Brook University

    There were several far-reaching conceptual developments in topology at the turn of the century. In the late 1980’s – early 1990’s, a spectacular progress in the theory of knots and 3-dimensional manifolds was made by the Fields medalists E. Witten and V. Jones followed by the work of N. Reshetikhin, V. Turaev, O. Viro and others who related this area of topology to the theory of quantum groups. As a result, a new mathematical field was born, the topological quantum field theory.

    In parallel to the appearance of the topological quantum field theory, there emerged a theory of Gromov-Witten invariants, under the influence of implantation of pseudo-holomorphic curve technique into symplectic geometry by M. Gromov and the holomorphic curve counting into quantum 2-dimensional gravity by E. Witten. This had led, in particular, to the Kontsevich-Manin theory of quantum cohomology and a breakthrough in enumerative geometry.

    These new research areas are not only linked by the time of their appearance and the string theory as a common root, but also by deep relations between the techniques and underlying algebraic structures. The very recent developments in Gromov-Witten theory brought to light direct bridges between enumerative geometry of open strings and the theory of knot invariants. The proposed program is devoted to a number of the most active areas of these research fields.

    The following activities will be organised during the program:

    Algebraic Methods in Complexity Theory

    June – November, 2022

    Organizers:

    V. Arvind, Institute of Mathematical Sciences Chennai
    Alexander S. Kulikov, PDMI
    Rahul Santhanam, University of Oxford
    Jacobo Toran, University of Ulm

    The broad goal of Computational Complexity is the study of computational resources required by algorithms to detect properties of combinatorial objects and structures. An approach that has proven successful in the past is, broadly, via connections to algebraic settings. Indeed, many of the deepest and most powerful results in Computational Complexity rely on algebraic proof techniques. These include most of the methods for obtaining circuit lower bounds, the PCP characterization of NP, or the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena polynomial-time primality testing, just to name some well known results.

    While these examples are now classical results, algebraic methods continue to play a central role in exciting recent progress in computational complexity. These areas include:

    • Algebraic Complexity Theory: this subfield is rooted in algebraic questions, including algebraic circuit lower bounds, and limits to the methods, algorithms for polynomial identity testing and
      related problems, and connections to randomness in computation.
    • Algorithms based on algebra: traditionally strong fields here are algorithmic coding theory and constraint satisfaction problems. There are new surprising connections with algebraic methods
      like the work of Ryan Williams on all-pair shortest path algorithms based on the polynomial method, and the more recent fast exponential-time algorithm for solving a system of polynomial equations based on the Razborov-Smolensky method. To this area belongs also the study of algorithms on algebraic structures like groups, matrices, or polynomials.
    • Many other areas of complexity theory, like proof complexity, communication complexity, quantum computation or algorithmic game theory abound with algebraic techniques and methods.

    The program is planned with activities around these three broad themes. We aim to bring together researchers using a diverse array of algebraic methods in a variety of settings. Researchers in these areas are relying on ever more sophisticated and specialized mathematics, and this program can play an important role in educating the complexity theory community about the latest new techniques, bringing together experts using algebraic methods for different problem domains to exchange ideas spurring further progress.

    The following activities will be organized during the program: