Event Type
Seminar
Friday, March 5, 2021 11:30 AM
Rafe Mazzeo (Stanford)

One of the most powerful techniques in differential topology over the past forty years has been the use of new invariants of smooth manifolds (or other related objects) using gauge theory.  Gauge theory is a field with very strong ties to several subjects, ranging from physics to algebraic geometry, with PDE and geometric analysis. Roughly, one wants to attach a number to a manifold, for example, by `counting’ the number of solutions to a certain partial differential equation.  I will describe some of this story, with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the opportunities for new analytic challenges and techniques in this field.