Conference on Cycles, Calibrations and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Department of Mathematics at Stony Brook University will host a week-long conference entitled "Cycles, Calibrations and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations'' from October 22-28, 2012. The last two decades have seen a flourishing of research on calibrations and cycles, sparked in part by the work of Strominger, Yau and Zaslow, which relates a concrete form of the mirror symmetry conjecture to singular foliations by special Lagrangian submanifolds. This conference will bring together a large group of world experts on the many aspects of this topic ranging from the study of nonlinearpartial differential equations, through the geometry of special holonomy spaces, to aspects of string theory in physics. There will be an internal workshop for young researchers aimed specifically at fostering collaboration. Funds will be used largely for housing and travel expenses of graduate students and post-docs, together with some junior faculty who do not have NSF support, and a few of the principal speakers. The conference is dedicated to the mathematics surrounding cycles and calibrated geometry, an area which has been the focus of much recent activity in both mathematics and physics. A large number of eminent researchers, from a variety of fields related to this topic, have agreed to give talks. This should result in wide-ranging and fruitful discussions. There will be a focus on young researchers. In particular, there will be a week-long internal workshop for graduate students and post-docs designed to encourage interaction and collaboration. This workshop will be directed by Blaine Lawson (Stony Brook) together with Sergei Grigorian (Simons Center for Geometry and Physics), and Sema Salur (University of Rochester). Further details on the conference can be found at: http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~cycles2012