SMS scnews item created by Anna Romanov at Mon 3 Feb 2020 1348
Type: Seminar
Modified: Thu 20 Feb 2020 1459
Distribution: World
Expiry: 28 Feb 2020
Calendar1: 21 Feb 2020 1500-1700
CalTitle1: Maxim - Vanishing cycles and applications, Part I
Calendar2: 28 Feb 2020 1500-1700
CalTitle2: Maxim - Vanishing cycles and applications, Part II
Auth: romanova@10.17.126.222 (arom8272) in SMS-WASM

# Informal Friday Seminar: Maxim -- Vanishing cycles and applications

In the first part, I will introduce vanishing cycles from a topological perspective,
using the topology of complex hypersurface singularity germs as a motivation. The second
part will be devoted to applications: (a) I plan to show how vanishing cycles can be
used to compute the Euler characteristic of a complex projective hypersurface with
arbitrary singularities; (b) I will briefly explain Beilinsonâ€™s gluing of perverse
sheaves via vanishing cycles; (c) I will indicate how vanishing cycles can be used to
categorify Donaldson-Thomas invariants; (d) If time permits, I will explain how motivic
characteristic classes for vanishing cycles can be used in birational geometry to detect
jumping coefficients of multiplier ideal and to characterize rational or du Bois
singularities.


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