Jan 21 (Wed)
11:00 MCS3055 E&PRose Wagstaffe (Manchester): Developing an authentic coursework assessment for first-year Actuarial Science and Mathematics students
In this seminar I will discuss an ongoing project aimed at embedding authentic assessment and employability skills into a coursework assessment for a first-year module on the Actuarial Science and Mathematics programme at the University of Manchester. The project involved collaboration between the course lecturers (Holly Barker and Rose Wagstaffe), industry professionals, and a student summer intern. During the seminar, I will outline key insights from student and industry surveys, alongside an industry focus group, which informed decisions about assessment design and the embedding of employability skills. I will then describe the coursework that was implemented, highlighting how industry perspectives were translated into appropriate coursework tasks, and discuss the challenges encountered during development and delivery. I will also outline our plans to evaluate the coursework through a follow-up student survey and discuss plans for the next iteration of the module, including refinements to the assessment.
Venue: MCS3055
Online: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_M2Q0MDRiNDItZGNjZi00YjYwLWFhNzItNzk0OWY3Y2ZkMmIx%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%227250d88b-4b68-4529-be44-d59a2d8a6f94%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%226cb8930b-1559-4659-8c60-d0b762855115%22%7d
15:00 zoom A&CElisabetta Armanini (CERN): From Partons to Strings: Scattering on the Coulomb branch of N = 4 SYM
We study scattering on the Coulomb branch of planar N=4 SYM. At weak 't Hooft coupling scattering amplitudes can be computed using Feynman diagrams and the relevant degrees of freedom are quarks and gluons. At strong 't Hooft coupling the dynamics is captured by string scattering in flat space. Dual conformal symmetry makes it possible to constrain the unitarity properties and the spectrum of the amplitude: bound states are encoded in the cusp anomalous dimension of a Maldacena-Wilson line with operators inserted at the cusp, which is fixed by integrability. In this talk, we show how to combine dual conformal invariance, integrability, worldsheet bootstrap and the S-matrix bootstrap to explore scattering at finite 't Hooft coupling. [Based on 2510.19909]
Venue: zoom
Jan 22 (Thu)
13:00 MCS2068 G&TChunyang Hu (Durham / University of Science and Technology of China): On a magneto-spectral invariant for finite graphs
In this talk, I will introduce a new spectral invariant on
finite graphs, called "magneto-spectral height". This invariant vanishes
on forests and is maximized by complete graphs. We compute this
invariant for cycles, complete graphs, wheel graphs, hypercubes,
complete bipartite graphs and suspensions of trees and derive vatious
lower and upper bounds. If time permits, I will introduce a sharp upper
bound for regular bipartite graphs and derive a direct relation between
the class of graphs assuming this upper bound and the class of unit
weighing matrices, which are generalizations of complex Hadamard
matrices. Moreover, this class of regular bipartite graphs has
non-negative magnetic Bakry-Émery curvature. I will also discuss the
behavior of this invariant under various graphs operations and
investigate relations to the spectral gap. This is joint work with Bobo
Hua, Supanat Kamtue, Shiping Liu, Florentin Muench and Norbert Peyerimhoff.
Venue: MCS2068
Jan 23 (Fri)
13:00 MCS0001 HEPMParita Shah (Durham University): Dualities, Integrable Deformations, and Quantum Corrections in String Theory
In this talk, I will give an overview of my PhD work on dualities and integrable structures in string theory, with a particular emphasis on T-duality as both a conceptual symmetry and a practical solution-generating tool. I will explain how integrable deformations of string sigma models can be embedded into the duality-covariant framework of Double Field Theory, where T-duality is realized geometrically. I will also describe how the Double Field Theory formalism can be used to analyze higher-order \u03b1\u2032-corrections to supergravity backgrounds, highlighting a special class of geometries where quantum corrections take a particularly simple form. The talk will also discuss extensions of non-Abelian T-duality that lead to new classes of string backgrounds. These results illustrate how duality-covariant methods provide insight into the structure of string theory across different regimes.
Venue: MCS0001
Jan 26 (Mon)
13:00 MCS2068 StatAdam Iqbal, Rakan Al Rekayan (Durham): TBA
14:00 MCS2068 PureFred Diamond (King's College London): Modularity of elliptic curves, and beyond, and beneath
In his celebrated work completed in 1995, Wiles, in part with Taylor, proved that every semistable elliptic curve over Q is modular, in the sense that its L-function is also that of a modular form. Their methods were subsequently extended by Breuil, Conrad, Taylor and myself to prove the modularity of all elliptic curves over Q. The Modularity Theorem can be viewed as a special case of Langlands reciprocity conjectures, which continue to see exciting advances stemming from Wiles’ work in combination with further innovations.
In addition to its most famous consequence, namely Fermat’s Last Theorem, modularity also underpins all major progress on the Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture. Like the Modularity Theorem, the Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture can also be viewed as an instance of a vast family of conjectures, in this case relating arithmetic invariants to special values of L-functions. After giving an overview of Wiles’ method and some subsequent developments, I’ll explain how the proof of the Modularity Theorem is itself related, by work of Hida, to another instance of these conjectures, namely for certain adjoint L-functions.
Venue: MCS2068
Jan 27 (Tue)
14:00 MCS2068 ASGFred Diamond (King's College): Geometric Serre weights and Jochnowitz modules for Hilbert modular forms (mod p)
Part of Serre’s Conjecture (now a theorem of Khare and Wintenberger) predicts the minimal weight of a modular form giving rise to any (odd, irreducible) two-dimensional characteristic p representation of the absolute Galois group of Q. I’ll explain a generalization of the weight part of Serre’s conjecture involving Galois groups over totally real fields and Hilbert modular forms, viewed as sections of line bundles on Hilbert modular varieties (and so includes, for example, forms of partial weight one). I’ll also discuss partial results towards it, and explain the statement of a refinement that captures additional structure in this context. This is joint work variously with Sasaki, Kassaei and Wiersema.
Venue: MCS2068
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Contact: arthur.lipstein@durham.ac.uk
Jan 21 15:00 Elisabetta Armanini (CERN): From Partons to Strings: Scattering on the Coulomb branch of N = 4 SYM
We study scattering on the Coulomb branch of planar N=4 SYM. At weak 't Hooft coupling scattering amplitudes can be computed using Feynman diagrams and the relevant degrees of freedom are quarks and gluons. At strong 't Hooft coupling the dynamics is captured by string scattering in flat space. Dual conformal symmetry makes it possible to constrain the unitarity properties and the spectrum of the amplitude: bound states are encoded in the cusp anomalous dimension of a Maldacena-Wilson line with operators inserted at the cusp, which is fixed by integrability. In this talk, we show how to combine dual conformal invariance, integrability, worldsheet bootstrap and the S-matrix bootstrap to explore scattering at finite 't Hooft coupling. [Based on 2510.19909]
Venue: zoom
Usual Venue: MCS3070
Contact: andrew.krause@durham.ac.uk
No upcoming seminars have been scheduled (not unusual outside term time).
Usual Venue: MCS2068
Contact: herbert.gangl@durham.ac.uk
Jan 27 14:00 Fred Diamond (King's College): Geometric Serre weights and Jochnowitz modules for Hilbert modular forms (mod p)
Part of Serre’s Conjecture (now a theorem of Khare and Wintenberger) predicts the minimal weight of a modular form giving rise to any (odd, irreducible) two-dimensional characteristic p representation of the absolute Galois group of Q. I’ll explain a generalization of the weight part of Serre’s conjecture involving Galois groups over totally real fields and Hilbert modular forms, viewed as sections of line bundles on Hilbert modular varieties (and so includes, for example, forms of partial weight one). I’ll also discuss partial results towards it, and explain the statement of a refinement that captures additional structure in this context. This is joint work variously with Sasaki, Kassaei and Wiersema.
Venue: MCS2068
Feb 03 14:00 Max Koelbl (Osaka University):
Feb 24 14:00 Oleksiy Klurman (University of Bristol):
Mar 03 14:00 Heejong Lee (KIAS):
Usual Venue: OC218
Contact: mohamed.anber@durham.ac.uk
For more information, see HERE.
No upcoming seminars have been scheduled (not unusual outside term time).
Usual Venue: MCS3052
Contact: andrew.krause@durham.ac.uk
Jan 21 11:00 Rose Wagstaffe (Manchester): Developing an authentic coursework assessment for first-year Actuarial Science and Mathematics students
In this seminar I will discuss an ongoing project aimed at embedding authentic assessment and employability skills into a coursework assessment for a first-year module on the Actuarial Science and Mathematics programme at the University of Manchester. The project involved collaboration between the course lecturers (Holly Barker and Rose Wagstaffe), industry professionals, and a student summer intern. During the seminar, I will outline key insights from student and industry surveys, alongside an industry focus group, which informed decisions about assessment design and the embedding of employability skills. I will then describe the coursework that was implemented, highlighting how industry perspectives were translated into appropriate coursework tasks, and discuss the challenges encountered during development and delivery. I will also outline our plans to evaluate the coursework through a follow-up student survey and discuss plans for the next iteration of the module, including refinements to the assessment.
Venue: MCS3055
Usual Venue: MCS2068
Contact: fernando.galaz-garcia@durham.ac.uk
Jan 22 13:00 Chunyang Hu (Durham / University of Science and Technology of China): On a magneto-spectral invariant for finite graphs
In this talk, I will introduce a new spectral invariant on
finite graphs, called "magneto-spectral height". This invariant vanishes
on forests and is maximized by complete graphs. We compute this
invariant for cycles, complete graphs, wheel graphs, hypercubes,
complete bipartite graphs and suspensions of trees and derive vatious
lower and upper bounds. If time permits, I will introduce a sharp upper
bound for regular bipartite graphs and derive a direct relation between
the class of graphs assuming this upper bound and the class of unit
weighing matrices, which are generalizations of complex Hadamard
matrices. Moreover, this class of regular bipartite graphs has
non-negative magnetic Bakry-Émery curvature. I will also discuss the
behavior of this invariant under various graphs operations and
investigate relations to the spectral gap. This is joint work with Bobo
Hua, Supanat Kamtue, Shiping Liu, Florentin Muench and Norbert Peyerimhoff.
Venue: MCS2068
Jan 29 13:00 Daniel Disney (Durham): Sub-Riemannian Structures on Exotic 7-Spheres
Sub-Riemannian structures of high codimension (greater than
one) are rare on 7-manifolds. Until recently, only three such examples
were known on any of the homotopy 7-spheres: two on the standard
7-sphere and one on the Gromoll--Meyer exotic sphere. In this talk I
will describe new examples of step-2, codimension-3 sub-Riemannian
structures on every homotopy (exotic) 7-sphere.
Venue: MCS2068
Feb 05 13:00 Sarah Whitehouse (Sheffield): Homotopy theory and geometry related to multicomplexes
A multicomplex is a variant of a bicomplex and these
structures arise naturally in many geometric, topological and algebraic
contexts; for example, from filtered simplicial sets. I will explain
some recent joint work with Joana Cirici and Muriel Livernet which
explores homotopy theories related to the two spectral sequences of a
truncated multicomplex. There are potential applications to the study of
homotopy types of almost and generalized complex manifolds.
Venue: MCS2068
Feb 12 13:00 Tom Nye (Newcastle): Metric geometry for statistics in spaces of trees, forests and
graphs
Feb 19 13:00 Raphael Zentner (Durham): TBA
Feb 26 13:00 Brendan Guilfoyle (Munster Technological University): TBA
Mar 06 13:00 Julian Scheuer (Goethe University Frankfurt): TBA
Mar 12 13:00 Andy Wand (Glasgow): TBA
Apr 30 13:00 Anthea Monod (Imperial): TBA
Usual Venue: MCS0001
Contact: p.e.dorey@durham.ac.uk,enrico.andriolo@durham.ac.uk,tobias.p.hansen@durham.ac.uk
Jan 23 13:00 Parita Shah (Durham University): Dualities, Integrable Deformations, and Quantum Corrections in String Theory
In this talk, I will give an overview of my PhD work on dualities and integrable structures in string theory, with a particular emphasis on T-duality as both a conceptual symmetry and a practical solution-generating tool. I will explain how integrable deformations of string sigma models can be embedded into the duality-covariant framework of Double Field Theory, where T-duality is realized geometrically. I will also describe how the Double Field Theory formalism can be used to analyze higher-order \u03b1\u2032-corrections to supergravity backgrounds, highlighting a special class of geometries where quantum corrections take a particularly simple form. The talk will also discuss extensions of non-Abelian T-duality that lead to new classes of string backgrounds. These results illustrate how duality-covariant methods provide insight into the structure of string theory across different regimes.
Venue: MCS0001
Jan 30 13:00 Neil Turok (Edinburgh University): TBA
Feb 06 13:00 Fiona Seibold (Ecole Polytechnique Lausanne): TBA
Feb 13 13:00 Ayan Kumar Patra (Durham University): TBA
Feb 20 13:00 Carlos Nunez (Swansea University): TBA
Feb 27 13:00 Paul Fendley (Oxford University): TBA
Mar 06 13:00 Olalla Castro Alvaredo (City University London): TBA
Mar 13 13:00 Costantinos Papageorgakis (Queen Mary University London): TBA
Mar 20 13:00 Donal O'Connell (Edinburgh University): TBA
Mar 27 13:00 Sean Hartnoll (Cambridge University): TBA
Usual Venue: MCS2068
Contact: tyler.helmuth@durham.ac.uk,oliver.kelsey-tough@durham.ac.uk
Jan 29 14:00 Irene Ayuso Ventura (University of Durham): Imry-Ma phenomenon for the hard-core model on Z^2.
In this talk I will present recent joint work with Leandro Chiarini, Tyler Helmuth, and Ellen Powell on the hard-core model on ℤ², a model of independent sets on the square lattice. We show that under weak random disorder, this model has no phase transition in two dimensions. This behavior is known as the Imry–Ma phenomenon, whose most classical example is the random-field Ising model. Our proof is inspired by the Aizenman–Wehr argument for the random-field Ising model, but relies on spatial symmetries rather than internal spin symmetries.
Venue: MCS2068
Feb 05 14:00 Jannis Dause (TU Berlin): Duality in Non-Markovian Stochastic Control problems using Rough Stochastic Differential Equations
The classical stochastic optimal control framework is heavily based on the
Markovianity of the underlying dynamics e.g., through the use of the
dynamic programming principle and the subsequent derivation of the
Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. In this talk we will focus on a certain
class of non-Markovian stochastic control problem arising e.g., from optimal
control under stochastic volatility.
In particular we will consider controlled doubly-stochastic differential
equations driven by two independent Brownian noises B and W, where the
coefficients depend progressively on the noise W. Extending previous work
of [Diehl, Friz,Gassiat '17] by methods from BS(P)DE-theory, we are then
able to relate this stochastic control problem to a penalized version of
the original control problem, where W can now be treated as a
'frozen', i.e., deterministic (but irregular) path. Most importantly
this 'dual problem' is now Markovian and may thus be treated by
classical methods.
The main technical tool allowing us handle the dual problem will be the
recently introduced theory of Rough Stochastic Differential Equations
(RSDEs) [Friz, Hoquet, Lê '21], which provides a generalized framework of
classical SDE Theory and Lyons' Rough Differential Equations.
This is joint work with Peter Bank, Peter K. Friz and Filippo de Feo.
Venue: MCS2068
Feb 12 14:00 Julian Ransford (University of Cambridge): TBA
Feb 19 14:00 Giorgios Vaskedis (Newcastle University): TBA
Usual Venue: MCS2068
Contact: michael.r.magee@durham.ac.uk
Jan 26 14:00 Fred Diamond (King's College London): Modularity of elliptic curves, and beyond, and beneath
In his celebrated work completed in 1995, Wiles, in part with Taylor, proved that every semistable elliptic curve over Q is modular, in the sense that its L-function is also that of a modular form. Their methods were subsequently extended by Breuil, Conrad, Taylor and myself to prove the modularity of all elliptic curves over Q. The Modularity Theorem can be viewed as a special case of Langlands reciprocity conjectures, which continue to see exciting advances stemming from Wiles’ work in combination with further innovations.
In addition to its most famous consequence, namely Fermat’s Last Theorem, modularity also underpins all major progress on the Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture. Like the Modularity Theorem, the Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture can also be viewed as an instance of a vast family of conjectures, in this case relating arithmetic invariants to special values of L-functions. After giving an overview of Wiles’ method and some subsequent developments, I’ll explain how the proof of the Modularity Theorem is itself related, by work of Hida, to another instance of these conjectures, namely for certain adjoint L-functions.
Venue: MCS2068
Usual Venue: MCS3070
Contact: joe.thomas@durham.ac.uk
No upcoming seminars have been scheduled (not unusual outside term time).
Usual Venue: MCS2068
Contact: hyeyoung.maeng@durham.ac.uk,andrew.iskauskas@durham.ac.uk
Jan 26 13:00 Adam Iqbal, Rakan Al Rekayan (Durham): TBA
Feb 02 13:00 Jon Cockayne (Southampton): TBA
Feb 09 13:00 Juraj Medzihorsky (Durham): TBA
Feb 16 13:00 Vanda Inacio (Edinburgh): TBA
Feb 23 13:00 Long Tran-Thanh (Warwick): TBA
Mar 02 13:00 Helen Ogden (Southampton): TBA
Mar 09 13:00 Irini Moustaki (LSE): TBA
Mar 16 13:00 Mengchu Li (Birmingham): TBA
Mar 23 13:00 Rasa Remenyte-Prescott (Nottingham): TBA
