The Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Villanova University
presents a colloquium by
Dr. Elizabeth Beazley
Haverford College
The Rim Hook Rule:
Enumerative Geometry via Combinatorics
Friday, September 13, 2013
Mendel Hall, room 154
3:15 pm
(refreshments at 3:00 pm)
Abstract: The theory of quantum cohomology was initially developed in the
early 1990s by physicists working in the field of superstring theory.
Mathematicians then discovered applications to enumerative algebraic
geometry, counting the number of rational curves of a given degree
satisfying certain incidence conditions, but the impact now extends into
many other aspects of algebraic geometry, combinatorics, representation
theory, number theory, and even back to physics. In this talk, we will
explain a "rim hook rule" which provides an efficient way to
compute products in the quantum cohomology of the Grassmannian of k
planes in complex n-space. This talk will be very concrete and completely
self-contained, assuming only a background in basic linear algebra.