Rutgers University at Newark
Algebra & Number Theory Seminar
Academic year 2011-2012

The seminar is meeting in Smith Hall, Room 204 (mathematics seminar room).
The seminar is organized by Zhengyu Mao and Yiannis Sakellaridis.

Format: This is mostly a learning seminar, with occasional invited talks. During the fall of 2011 we will be studying the theta correspondence and its applications to automorphic forms.

Click on the name of the speaker or scroll down for the abstract (if available).

Spring Semester

Thursday 2 February, 1:00-2:20pm
A result of Gan-Gomez on the unitary spectrum of some spherical varieties.
Yiannis Sakellaridis
Thursday 9 February, 10:00-11:20am
A result of Gan-Gomez on the unitary spectrum of some spherical varieties.
Yiannis Sakellaridis
Thursday 16 February, 1:00-2:20pm
Introduction to the conjectures of Stark
Robert Sczech
Thursday 23 February, 1:00-2:20pm
Introduction to the conjectures of Stark
Robert Sczech

Fall Semester

Wednesday 28 September, 4:00-5:15pm
Toric periods on GL(2): the result of Waldspurger.
Zhengyu Mao
Wednesday 5 October, 2:30-3:45pm
Introduction to the Weil representation.
Cesar Valverde
Wednesday 2 November, 3:45-5:00pm
Reductive dual pairs.
Zhengyu Mao
Wednesday 30 November, 10:00-11:20am
Towards the proof of Howe duality I. (Notes)
Yiannis Sakellaridis
Wednesday 7 December, 10:00-11:20am
Towards the proof of Howe duality II.
Yiannis Sakellaridis

Last Year's seminar
Back to the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science.

Abstracts

Feb. 2 and 9
Title: A result of Gan-Gomez on the unitary spectrum of some spherical varieties.
Speaker: Yiannis Sakellaridis
Abstract: A conjecture of Venkatesh and myself states that for a spherical variety X over a local field the space L^2(X) should have a Plancherel decomposition in terms of certain "X-distinguished" Arthur parameters. I will present a recent paper of Wee Teck Gan and Raul Gomez, where they use the theta correspondence to prove this conjecture for most varieties of rank one.

Feb. 16 and 23
Title: Introduction to the conjectures of Stark.
Speaker: Robert Sczech
Abstract: A fundamental problem of algebraic number theory is the problem of constructing all abelian extensions of a given algebraic number field. That problem was solved by Kronecker ("Jugendtraum") in the special case of the rational number field and the case of an imaginary quadratic field. The conjectures of Stark (from the 1970's) represent a partial answer to that problem for an infinite class of base fields. In my talk I will report on the most accessible cases of that conjecture starting with the case of the rational number field. The talk will be elementary and therefore accessible to interested graduate students.