Conference: Manifolds and Groups: Towers of Covers; September 7th - September 12th, 2015, Ventotene, Italy

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

This project supports participation of US based mathematicians in the international workshop "Manifolds and Groups: Towers of Covers" which will take place from September 7th until September 12th, 2015, in Ventotene, Italy. A major goal of the workshop is to train and support the next generation of mathematicians in the field of geometric analysis. The conference will help to educate graduate students and recent PhDs on the latest developments in the field. The conference will introduce junior mathematicians to various topics in geometric group theory and bring them up to the forefront of research. A part of the conference will be devoted to three mini-courses, taught by experts known also for their ability to give enlightening lectures. In parallel to the minicourses, there will be research talks. The speakers will be prompted by the organizers to aim their lectures at a broad audience of mathematicians. The majority of funding will support junior participants coming from USA. The organizing committee will encourage and support broad and diverse participation. In particular, women mathematicians and members of other under-represented groups are especially encouraged to apply for support. The workshop consists of the following three minicourses on different aspects of "Towers of Covers": "Invariant Random Subgroups in rank one and higher rank Lie groups" (Tsachik Gelander, Hebrew University and Weizmann Institute), "Coverings and expanders" (Emmanuel Kowalski, ETH Zurich), and "L^2-invariants and growth of homology in towers of finite coverings" (Roman Sauer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). The workshop will also feature research talks and informal discussions. Participants will include leading U.S. and European researchers from different areas relevant to the centerpiece of the workshop (3-manifold topology, probability and analytic group theory) as well as junior researchers, both graduate students and postdocs. More infromation can be found at the website http://www.ventotene2015.net/