UW Algebra Seminar
Speaker: Amnon Yekutieli, Ben Gurion University
Title: Perverse sheaves and dualizing complexes over
noncommutative ringed schemes
Date: October 8, 2002
I will discuss an attempt at Grothendieck Duality on
noncommutative spaces. Since in the case of affine noncommutative
spaces (i.e. rings) Grothendieck Duality is pretty well understood,
and on the other hand we don't even know what is a noncommutative
space in general, we consider an intermediate case: a noncommutative
space Y that's an affine fibration over a commutative scheme X. That's
a fancy way to say that Y=(X,A) where A is a sheaf of quasi coherent
noncommutative rings on X. We call (X,A) a quasi coherent ringed scheme.
As usual in such circumstances, we encounter the problem of gluing. On
each affine open set U in X we have a rigid dualizing complex for A|_U
from the ring construction, and these are compatible on intersections.
But how to glue these complexes globally? One should note that Cousin
complexes, the solution devised by Grothendieck for gluing dualizing
complexes, will not work in the noncommutative world due to well known
Instead we choose to use perverse sheaves. This is a gluing method
invented by Bernstein-Beilinson-Deligne-Gabber in the context of
geometry of singular spaces. We discovered that the Auslander
condition of dualizing complexes over noncommutative rings (a very
algebraic property) is exactly what is needed to define perverse
modules over a noncommutative ring. And furthermore using a few nice
features of the theory, we can also extend the definition from rings
to noncommutative ringed schemes. Finally it turns out that rigid
dualizing complexes are themselves perverse sheaves of bimodules
(namely on the product X^2), so we can glue the local pieces together.
I will explain what are dualizing complexes and what they are good for
(concentrating on the noncommutative side). Then I'll discuss perverse
sheaves, the Auslander condition and how they interact. I'll finish by
sketching our construction.
The work is joint with J.J. Zhang (Seattle).
Speaker: Isabella Novik, University of Washington
Date: October 15, 2002
Algebraic shifting introduced by Gil Kalai is an algebraic operation
that given a simplicial complex $\Gamma$ produces a shifted
complex $\Delta(\Gamma)$. This new complex has a simpler
combinatorial structure, yet it shares with $\Gamma$
several combinatorial, topological, and algebraic properties
such as face numbers, (topological) Betti numbers, extremal
(algebraic graded) Betti numbers, etc.
In the talk I will survey existing results and
will present several new ones on algebraic shifting and its
connections to commutative algebra and algebraic geometry.
This is a joint work with Eric Babson and Rekha Thomas.
Speaker: Karen Smith, University of Michigan
Title: Uniform Approximation of Valuation ideals
Date: October 17, 2002
Let E be a divisor on a variety X contracted to a point
on the affine plane under some proper birational map.
The E determines a valuation of the function field k(x, y)
and the corresponding valuation ideals I_n in k[x, y] consisting of
functions whose values are at least n form a decreasing collection of
primary ideals. An important question is: how close are these ideals
to being powers of some fixed ideal? If E is the exceptional divisor of
of a blowup at a point, then the ideals I_n are powers of the
corresponding maximal ideal, but in general, this is a difficult problem.
In the talk, we will discuss the background needed to appreciate this
problem and describe recent work towards a solution. This is
joint work with Lawrence Ein and Rob Lazarsfeld.
Speaker: David Berenstein, Institute for Advanced Study
Title: Singularities and their resolutions: a perspective from open strings
Date: October 22, 2002
I will address how string theory gives a natural theory to
resolutions of algebro-geometric singularities by noncommutative algebras.
I will describe what requirements the noncommutative algebras need to satisfy.
Then, I will
give various examples of such resolutions (mostly Calabi-Yau singularities in
dimension 3), and some techniques that allow one
to show that they satisfy all of the
required conditions. I will also describe why the homological Ext-functors
are the natural data that the string theory provides, and why the natural
invariant for the resolution is
the bounded derived category of finitely generated modules over the algebra.
Date: October 29, 2002
Speaker: Doug Lind, University of Washington
Title: Commutative Algebra and Dynamical Systems
Date: November 5, 2002
The study of d commuting automorphisms of a compact
abelian group corresponds, via Pontryagin duality, to the
study of modules over the ring R of Laurent polynomials in d
commuting variables with integer coefficients. Natural
dynamical notions such as ergodicity, mixing, and
expansiveness translate into algebraic properties of the
corresponding R-module, giving rise to some off-beat
questions, and answers, in commutative algebra. Such
algebraic Z^d-actions are the only class of Z^d-actions
studied so far with a reasonably complete dynamical theory.
I'll describe, using several concrete examples,
this correspondence. Next I'll give a dynamics/algebra
"dictionary", where the prime ideals associated to an
R-module play a fundamental role. Finally, I'll describe
recent joint work with Einsiedler, Miles, and Ward that
describes the subdynamics of algebraic Z^d-actions in terms
of the complex "amoeba" of an ideal in R (the logarithmic
image of its complex variety), and show why we think that
p-adic versions of the amoeba are necessary for a complete
Speaker: Stefan Kebekus, Universitat Bayreuth
Families of Rational Curves and a Characterization of the
Date: November 19, 2002
In the beginning 80s of the last century, S. Mori showed in his
groundbreaking works that many interesting complex-projective
are covered by rational curves. As many of the geometrical
those spaces are reflected in the geometry of the rational curves
they contain, the study of families of rational curves has become a
standard tool of classification theory and Fano-geometry. In this,
rational curves that are of minimal degree are of particular
because they are in many ways similar to projective lines. In the
will make this statement precise, and show how to use rational
prove a long-standing conjecture that characterizes the projective
as the space that contains the most rational curves.
Speaker: David Ben-Zvi, University of Chicago
Title: D-modules and Solitons
Date: December 3, 2002
We describe joint work with T. Nevins on the geometry of D-modules on
singular varieties and on smooth curves. Thinking of D-modules on a
variety Y as bundles on Y with infinitesimal parallel transport, we
show that they do not change when Y develops cusp singularities.
Thinking of D-modules on a smooth curve X as bundles (or in special
cases, configurations of points) on a noncommutative version of the
cotangent bundle to X, we use them to find a geometric bridge between
soliton equations (such as the KP and KdV hierarchies) and many-body
integrable Hamiltonian systems.
Speaker: Adrian Iovita, University of Washington
Title: Hidden Structures
Date: December 10, 2002
Let Z be an algebraic variety over a finite extension of Q_p
and let D^i denote its i-th de Rham cohomology group. As first
envisioned by Grothendieck D^i has frequently enough "hidden structure"
to characterize the arithmetic properties of Z. Coleman and I have been
able to make this structure "visible", i.e. explicit in some cases.
I will explain how deformation theory can be used
for this purpose.
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Coordinator, ten days in advance of the event or as soon as possible:
543-6450 (voice); 543-6452 (TDD); 685-3885 (FAX); firstname.lastname@example.org (E-mail).
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