Research Seminars: Algebra and Combinatorics

Fall 2025

Time & Location: All talks are on Wednesday in _____,  at 3:00 PM unless otherwise noted.
Organizers: Kalina Mincheva and Alessandra Costantini

Archives

 

Information on up coming events can be found at unofficial seminar website: Here

 

 

September 3

Title:  A summation formula for mock modular forms 

Speaker: Kalani Thalagoda - Tulane University

Abstract: Analytic number theorists frequently use summation formulas to study the asymptotic and statistical behavior of interesting (and sometimes erratic) arithmetic functions. For Dirichlet series satisfying a certain functional equation, Chandrasekharan and Narasimhan proved a formula for a weighted sum of the first n coefficients. In this talk, I will discuss a summation formula for mock modular forms of moderate growth and an application of it to Hurwitz class numbers. This is joint work with Olivia Beckwith, Nicholas Diamantis, Rajat Gupta, and Larry Rolen.

Location: Richardson Building, 108
Time: 3:00 PM
 
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September 10

Title:  Oriented matroids from non-polyhedral cones

Speaker: Speaker:  Catherine Babecki - California Institute of Technology Host: (Dan Bernstein)

Abstract: Existing generalizations of matroids to infinite settings are combinatorial in nature-- we propose a geometric alternative. One perspective on realizable oriented matroids comes from vector configurations and linear dependences among them. Pulling this back a step, the circuits (minimal dependences) are exactly the support-minimal vectors which lie in the null space of a linear map. We define conic matroids in a way that mimics this, and in particular, the "face-minimal" vectors in a subspace form a conic matroid analogously to standard realizable matroids. If the cone is the nonnegative orthant, we recover standard realizable oriented matroids. We will discuss our precise definitions, show how this structure captures features of Gale duality and conic programming, and share some of the directions we have yet to make headway in. Joint work with Isabelle Shankar and Amy Wiebe.

Location: Richardson Building, 108
Time: 3:00 PM
 
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