Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras (NCGOA) 2015

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides funding to help defray the expenses of participants in the "Annual Spring Institute on Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras 2015" that will be held from May 1-7, 2015, on the campus of Vanderbilt University. The field of classic geometry studies geometric objects whose coordinates commute. Noncommutative geometry is a mathematical theory specifically designed to handle "geometric" objects whose coordinates do not commute but which do occur naturally in both mathematics and physics. Such "noncommutative spaces" naturally arise in quantum physics, analysis, topology and geometry of manifolds, and number theory. Noncommutative geometry provides the tools to analyze and compute with these spaces, and it has led to important applications in the geometry and topology of manifolds, mathematical physics, knot theory, statistical mechanics, and conformal field theory. The annual Spring Institute includes a school specifically designed to highlight the most significant recent advances in noncommutative geometry and operator algebras, to identify new emerging directions, and to help graduate students and postdocs learn the fundamentals of this broad and technically difficult subject and navigate to the research frontiers. This event is the thirteenth installment of the Vanderbilt Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebra (NCGOA) spring conferences, a series that each year brings together a diverse group of roughly one hundred mathematicians whose primary research interests are in operator algebras and related topics. The main focus of the 2015 event is on operator algebras and approximation properties of groups. The conference program, which includes five mini-courses and twenty lectures by world leaders in the field, provides ample opportunity for graduate students, postdocs, and other young scientists to present their work. Conference web site: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/ncgoa15/