Topology Seminar

Blueshift phenomena in representation theory and homotopy theory

Vitaly Lorman, University of Rochester

Thursday, January 30th, 2020
1:00 PM - 1:50 PM
Hylan 1106A

This will be a talk, aimed mostly at a general mathematical audience, about the field of chromatic homotopy theory and a mysterious phenomenon called blueshift. I will begin with some examples in representation theory: Maschke’s theorem and the fact that the representation ring of a finite group (after p-adic completion) is self-dual are both secretly consequences of blueshift. I will then present a bird’s eye view of chromatic homotopy theory, the known examples of blueshift, and recent work (joint with Guchuan Li and J.D. Quigley) that shows that this phenomenon extends further than previously known.

Event contact: vlorman at ur dot rochester dot edu