REU Site in Algebra, Number Theory and Graph Theory

Texas State University - San Marcos, San Marcos TX

Investigators

Abstract

The project is a one year REU site in mathematics, to be held at Southwest Texas State University. Five students will work closely with two faculty members for eight weeks in the summer to solve open problems in mathematics. The objectives of the program are to directly involve students in research and to allow the students to interact with each other and to form a close mentoring relationship with a faculty member. The students will work in teams of two or three under the supervision of a faculty mentor. All of the open problems for this program have a strong computational aspect. The students will begin their research by computing examples and searching for patterns. They will then progress to making conjectures and proving theorems. The topics for this program will come from the fields of Algebra, Representation Theory, and Graph Theory. The background needed for the program will be a one semester course in Modern Algebra, or the equivalent. Some of the problems will also require knowledge of Linear Algebra. All students who have the necessary background are eligible to apply. Throughout the summer, the student groups will stay informed of each other's progress by holding twice weekly seminars at which they present their preliminary results. At the end of the summer, the student will write their results in the form of a research paper and will prepare a final presentation to be given to the Mathematics Department. The students and faculty will continue to work on the problems after the summer program ends by using electronic correspondence. Most of the projects will result in a final paper that will be submitted to a refereed journal for publication. In addition, each student will be provided with funding to travel to a mathematical conference to present his or her work. The point of contact for student recruitment is Dr. Susan Morey. She can be reached at (512) 245-3739 or by e-mail at morey@swt.edu. Her web site address is http://www.swt.edu/~sm26/index.html. A link to the address for site information will be provided there when it becomes available.