The University of Edinburgh
The School of Mathematics

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Colloquia, seminars and PG courses in 2007/8

You can obtain information about the current School colloquia and the current School seminars.

PG students are expected to attend all the colloquia, and all the seminars in their area.

Graduate courses

The Scottish Mathematical Sciences Training Centre organises video-conferenced lectures for first-year PGs, according to this schedule. The video-conference room is 5323.

PG course on string theory: Prof. J. Figueroa-O'Farrill and Dr. J. Simon.
Lectures will take place on Tuesdays at 2:00pm in JCMB 4312 after the EMPG Group Lunch.
The first lecture will take place on Tuesday, 25 September 2007.

Elliptic genus and the chiral deRham complex: Prof. C. Teleman
Lectures will take place on Thursdays 11.10am – 12.30pm in JCMB 4312.
The first lecture will take place on 4 October.

• 3 topology-flavoured lectures, but emphasising the connections to quantum field theory:
  K-theory, the Dirac operator and its index as a path integral, Witten's proof of the index formula (too nice to miss), K-homology as quantum mechanics, the elliptic genus as Dirac index on the loop space, elliptic cohomology and 2d quantum field theory.
• 3 lectures on the "Chiral de Rham complex", the large volume limit of the 'elliptic TFT'. This will require a quick review of vertex algebras.

Number theory: Prof. J. Wright
Lectures will take place on Fridays 1.00pm – 2.00pm in JCMB 4312.
The first lecture will take place on 9 November.
Plan: This will be an elementary course developing a peculiar point of view I have taken a fancy to recently. I will begin in (and perhaps never leave) the setting of integers mod N where life is much easier than in the integers themselves. We will look at polynomial congruences and (complete) exponential sums and develop a heuristics relating what goes on in the euclidean setting – driven by the field of reals – to what happens in the ring of integers mod N. If time and interest permits, we will then move on to the integers themselves and examine various diophantine equations and develop the theory of exponential sums, especially the circle method of Hardy-Littlewood-Ramanujan.

PG student-organised events

These events are organised by PG students themselves, one of whom usually speaks on a topic of their personal interest.

• Graduate Colloquia, Thursdays, 2–3.30
• The Geometry Club, Fridays 2pm – 4pm
• Mathematical Physics Speakers' Corner. Related to the Edinburgh Mathematical Physics Group.