NTSGrad Fall 2018/Abstracts

This page contains the titles and abstracts for talks scheduled in the Fall 2018 semester. To go back to the main GNTS page, click here.

Sept 11

Brandon Boggess

Praise Genus

We will explore topological constraints on the number of rational solutions to a polynomial equation, giving a sketch of Faltings's proof of the Mordell conjecture.

Sept 18

Solly Parenti

Asymptotic Equidistribution of Hecke Eigenvalues

We will talk about Serre's results of the equidistribution of Hecke eigenvalues, wading very slowly through the analysis.

Sept 25

Asvin Gothandaraman

Growth of class numbers in [math]\displaystyle{ \mathbb{Z}_p }[/math] extensions

I will explain how class numbers grow in a certain increasing sequence of number fields, why one should expect it based on an analogy with the function field case and the broad context in which this result sits. Time permitting, I will sketch a proof.

Oct 2

Soumya Sankar

Etale Cohomology: the Streets

The streets are often dangerous and to survive them one must pick up some basic skills. I will talk about some basic survival skills for the streets of Etale Cohomology.

Oct 9

Qiao He

Basics of Trace Formula

This will be a preparatory talk for Thursday's talk. The main goal is to introduce the basic ideas behind the trace formula. Since its statement is mainly formulated in terms of representation theory, I will introduce some notions in representation theory first and explain why number theorists care about it. Then I will give the general statement of trace formula and hopefully do some nontrivial examples. If time allows, I will mention some recent applications of the trace formula in the GGP conjecture, which is a vast generalization of Waldspurger's formula and the Gross-Zagier formula.

Oct 16

Ewan Dalby

Étale Fundamental Groups - Some Examples

I will remind everyone what Soumya told us about Étale fundamental groups a few weeks ago and describe some further examples where we can compute some things.