Groups, Arithmetic, and Monodromy

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

I propose to study the monodromy of Galois representations arising from cohomology, both to prove that it is generally as large as possible, and to use it to attack the inverse Galois problem for l-adic Lie groups. Such inverse problems are connected with deformation theory of Galois representations, and I propose also to investigate analogous problems in the deformation theory of representations of discrete 1-relator groups. Such representations are parametrized by the identity fiber of the word map associated to a given relation, and I propose further to study the geometry of such word maps more broadly, with applications to group theory. In a different direction, I intend to study the inverse Galois problem for Mordell-Weil groups and related questions in field arithmetic. Groups are the possible types of symmetry in pure and applied mathematics. In nature, groups very often arise in the study of "monodromy". The idea of monodromy gives one a common framework for considering a wide range of apparently quite different questions. For example: what happens to the solutions of a differential equation as they are followed around singular points back to their starting points? What are the possible symmetries of the number systems generated by coordinates of special points on curves? What are the possible states of a quantum computer obtainable by a sequence of machine operations? I propose to study groups, both to better understand their internal structure and, in the case of monodromy groups, to gain insight into the geometries and number systems which give rise to them.