SMS scnews item created by Anthony Henderson at Tue 2 Jun 2015 1606
Type: Seminar
Distribution: World
Expiry: 29 Oct 2015
Calendar1: 30 Jul 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc1: Carslaw 830
Calendar2: 6 Aug 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc2: Carslaw 830
Calendar3: 13 Aug 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc3: Carslaw 830
Calendar4: 20 Aug 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc4: Carslaw 830
Calendar5: 27 Aug 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc5: Carslaw 830
Calendar6: 3 Sep 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc6: Carslaw 830
Calendar7: 10 Sep 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc7: Carslaw 830
Calendar8: 17 Sep 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc8: Carslaw 830
Calendar9: 24 Sep 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc9: Carslaw 830
Calendar10: 8 Oct 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc10: Carslaw 830
Calendar11: 15 Oct 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc11: Carslaw 830
Calendar12: 22 Oct 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc12: Carslaw 830
Calendar13: 29 Oct 2015 1400-1600
CalLoc13: Carslaw 830
Auth: anthonyh@como.maths.usyd.edu.au

# Special lecture course: Kumar -- Verlinde dimension formula

Professor Shrawan Kumar from the University of North Carolina, an expert in
a wide range of areas in geometry and representation theory, will be visiting
the School in Semester 2 as part of his sabbatical. He is going to give a lecture
course on the proof of the Verlinde dimension formula, in which he will explain
the relevant ingredients from algebraic geometry, representation theory, topology
and mathematical physics. The course should be suitable for staff, PG students
and possibly ambitious Honours students. He will give 2 hours of lectures each
week of the semester, on Thursdays from 2pm in Carslaw 830. Details below.

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Time: Thursday 2-4pm, each teaching week of Semester 2
Place: Carslaw 830

Lecturer: Shrawan Kumar (University of North Carolina)
Title: Verlinde Dimension Formula for the Space of Conformal Blocks and the
Moduli of G-bundles

Outline:
Classical theta functions can be interpreted in geometric terms as global
sections of a certain determinant line bundle on the moduli space of line
bundles of degree g-1 on a smooth projective curve C of genus g. This notion
has a natural generalization where one replaces line bundles on C by
G-bundles on C, for a simply-connected complex semisimple algebraic group G,
giving rise to the space of generalized theta functions. This space is also
identified with the space of conformal blocks arising in Conformal Field
Theory, which is by definition the space of coinvariants in integrable
highest weight modules of affine Kac-Moody Lie algebras.

E. Verlinde conjectured a remarkable formula to calculate the dimension of
the space of generalized theta functions. Various works, notably by
Sorger and Teleman culminated into a proof of the Verlinde formula.

The main aim of this course will be to give a complete and self-contained
proof of this formula derived from the Propagation of Vacua and the
Factorization Theorem among others. The proof requires techniques from algebraic
geometry, geometric invariant theory, representation theory of affine
Kac-Moody Lie algebras, topology, and Lie algebra cohomology. Some basic
knowledge of algebraic geometry and representation theory of semisimple
Lie algebras will be helpful; but not required. I will develop the course
from scratch recalling results from different areas as we need them.

There is no text book available which is suitable for our course. We will
mainly rely on my own notes on the subject. This course should be suitable for
graduate students, postdocs and faculty members interested in the interaction
between algebraic geometry, representation theory, topology and mathematical physics.


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