Mathematics Colloquium, Spring 2004
Special Lecture presented by

Soliton equations and algebraic geometry

It is a puzzling discovery of the theory of integrable systems that the motion of the poles of meromorphic solutions of certain nonlinear PDE is often governed by simple particle systems. I will describe an explanation of this phenomenon (joint work with D. Ben-Zvi) that uses algebraic geometry. More precisely, the PDE are realized via flows on the space of "configurations of points on a quantum surface," and a geometric integral transform then identifies this configuration space with the phase space of the particle system (and the flows with linear motion along tori in this phase space).

Tuesday, January 20, 2004, 245 Altgeld Hall, 4:00 p.m.