2012 Lecture Series

There will be several distinguished IGA Lecturers spread throughout the year, who will give lecture series on current topics of intense international interest in Geometry and its Applications.

Ugo Bruzzo (International School for Advanced Studies, SISSA)

Geometry of Supermanifolds

He will be speaking at the IGA/AMSI Workshop, Geometry of Supermanifolds

5 lectures (2 hours each), 15-19 October, 2012. The lectures will be held in conference room 7.15, Level 7, Ingkarni Wardli building, University of Adelaide.

• Lecture 1: Background: graded algebras, sheaf theory, cohomology
• Lecture 2: Categories of supermanifolds
• Lecture 3: Geometry of supermanifolds
• Lecture 4: Super Riemann surfaces
• Lecture 5: Applications to physics

Ittay Weiss (University of the South Pacific)

Dendroidal Sets

4 lectures (2 hours each), 12-15 June, 2012. The lectures will be held in room B17, Ingkarni Wardli building, University of Adelaide.

• Session 1: Introduction to operads
• Session 2: Introduction to dendroidal sets
• Session 3: Introduction to Quillen model structures
• Session 4: Dendroidal sets in the theories of \infty-operads, of connected spectra, and of n-fold loop spaces

Rajesh Gopakumar (Harish-Chandra Research Institute, India)

Mathematical Aspects of Dualities in String Theory

He will be speaking at the IGA/AMSI Workshop, The Mathematical Implications of Gauge-String Dualities

5 lectures (2 hours each), 5-9 March, 2012. The lectures will be held in conference room 7.15, Level 7, Innova 21 building, University of Adelaide.

• Lecture 1: What are Gauge-String Dualities?
• Lecture 2: From Knots to Counting Curves
• Lecture 3: From Gauge Theories to String Theories
• Lecture 4: What is the Simplest Gauge-String Duality?
• Lecture 5: Dualities for 2d CFTs

Jonathan Rosenberg (University of Maryland, USA)

Mathematical Aspects of Dualities in String Theory

He will be speaking at the IGA/AMSI Workshop, Dualities in Field Theories and the Role of K-Theory

10 lectures (1 hour each), 19-23 March 2012. The lectures will be held in conference room 7.15, Level 7, Innova 21 building, University of Adelaide.

• The basic idea of dualities in field theories and T-duality
• K-Theory and its relevance to physics
• Basics of C*-algebras and crossed products
• Continuous-trace algebras and twisted K-theory
• The topology of T-duality and the Bunke-Schick construction
• T-duality via crossed products
• Problems presented by S-duality
• The AdS/CFT correspondence and problems it raises
• KR-theory and some KR calculations
• T-duality for orientifolds and applications of KR-theory