Peter Teichner
Math 270, Hot Topics Course
Fall 2007, Tu 2:00-3:30 in 72 Evans
The idea of this course is to bring together different groups in the department, consisting of faculty, postdocs, graduate students and advanced undergraduate students, and together learn a current research topic of broad interest.
The first two lectures will be given by the instructor: First an introduction to, and motivation for, the current topic, with lots of background information. In the second meeting, the material will be explained more carefully, and a detailed plan for the semester will be designed.
Participants will then pick a topic to present during the semester, roughly in the order of their mathematical age.
Each talk should be designed to last about one hour so that there is sufficient time for discussion during and after the talk.
Topological conformal field theory
In the 2007 fall semester we'll go through the following papers of Kevin Costello:
A dual view on the ribbon graph decomposition of moduli space,
Topological conformal field theories and Calabi-Yau categories,
Topological conformal field theories and Gauge theories,
and possibly
Renormalisation and the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism.
The first lecture on August 28th will be a general survey of the material, in the second week we'll hear about the above paper on ribbon graph decompositions of moduli space. Kevin will speak on September 11th (as well as the topology seminars on the 12th). In the following week we'll determine the precise schedule of talks and speakers.