Ninth East Coast Operator Algebras Symposium

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides support to defray expenses of participants in the Ninth East Coast Operator Algebras Symposium (ECOAS) on the campus of the Purdue University, October 15-16, 2011. The focus of the meeting is on operator algebras and noncommutative geometry, with applications to a wide range of areas from number theory to quantum physics. In addition to facilitating interaction between researchers in the field, the East Coast Operator Algebra Symposia are forums in which young researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the eastern region of the United States can acquaint themselves with current issues at the forefront of research, present their own work, and interact with senior mathematicians in the field. It is expected that the conference will host 60-80 participants, including 40-50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Operator algebra theory traces its beginnings to the papers of Murray and von Neumann in the 1930's on rings of operators, and the work Gelfand and Neumark in the 1940's on norm-closed, self-adjoint algebras of operators on Hilbert space. From the start, applications to other fields of mathematics and physics have influenced and even dictated the subject's development. Moreover, even though operator algebra theory has broadened considerably over the past thirty years or so, unexpected connections between different areas within the subject regularly arise. Based on the tradition of past successful ECOAS meetings, there is every expectation that this conference will be an event with significant research and training impact. Scientifically, there is potential for advances in the theory of operator algebras and noncommutative geometry including applications of operator algebras to other disciplines.