See the calendar below for future seminars and events.
Following every Thursday seminar, attendees are welcome to come to one of our SMRI Afternoon Teas which take place on Thursday afternoons at 2pm on the Quadrangle Terrace, accessed through the entry in Quadrangle Lobby P and via the SMRI Common Room on level 4.
Upcoming and current events: seminars, workshops and courses
SMRI Seminar, ‘Perverse sheaves and representations of p-adic groups’
Speaker: Charlotte Chan, University of Michigan
Date & time: Thursday 3rd April, 1 pm
Location: SMRI Seminar Room (Macleay Building A12 Room 301)
Abstract: One of the first basic ideas we all learn is that a continuous function is determined by its values on a dense open subset. In representation theory, this allows us to recognize a representation of a Lie group from an especially well-behaved locus—that of regular semisimple elements. But what if we want to study representations of matrix groups over finite fields? Lusztig’s revolutionary idea in the 1980s was that intermediate extension—the algebro-geometric version of the analytic notion of limit—applies in representation theory in discrete settings. I will explain this picture and describe a recent construction (joint with R. Bezrukavnikov) of perverse sheaves that give rise to positive-depth supercuspidal representations of p-adic groups. In the simplest nontrivial case, this resolves a conjecture of Lusztig.
SMRI Seminar, ‘Positive geometry and scattering amplitudes’
Speaker: Thomas Lam, University of Michigan
Date & time: Thursday 10th April, 1 pm
Location: SMRI Seminar Room (Macleay Building A12 Room 301)
Abstract: Positive geometry is a new field developing at the intersection of combinatorial geometry in mathematics and scattering amplitudes in physics. Scattering amplitudes are functions that predict the outcome of particle physics experiments. The goal of positive geometry is to recover these functions using a mixture of combinatorics and geometry. I will give an introduction to the subject.
Deligne-Lusztig Theory Learning Seminar
Details: In the spirit of the special semester on modern perspectives in representation theory, we are organising a learning seminar on Deligne-Lusztig theory.
Deligne and Lusztig (DL) gave a method to construct representation of reductive groups using l-adic cohomology, generalising parabolic induction. Later, this theory was used by Lusztig to find all representations of all finite simple groups of Lie type.
This seminar will focus on learning about the main ingredients and recipes to construct and describe these representations. Topics include reductive groups over finite fields, Frobenius maps, character theory, Harish-Chandra induction, l-adic cohomology, flag varieties, DL varieties, DL induction, character formulas, Lusztig series and more.
Dates & times: Wednesdays 10 am – 12 pm (lecture), followed by Wednesdays 1 pm – 2pm (exercise session). The first session, Wednesday 26th February, will be given by Charlotte Chan.
Location: SMRI Seminar Room (Macleay Building A12 Room 301)
Organisers: Tom Goertzen and Edmund Heng. Contact the organisers with any questions, or to join the mailing list.
Spaces, Functions and Numbers Seminar
Details: Welcome to Spaces, Functions and Numbers Seminar! This is a general-audience colloquium series for all members of the Sydney math community, including undergraduates at any level.
Dates & times: Tuesdays 4:30 pm – 6 pm AEST (in person talks), or 10 am – 11:30 am AEST (Zoom talks).
Location: In person events will run in the SMRI Seminar Room (Macleay Building A12 Room 301)
Organiser: June Park. Contact June with any questions, or to join the mailing list.
Modern Perspectives in Representation Theory: Special Semester 2025
Organizers: Charlotte Chan (University of Michigan), Thomas Lam (University of Michigan), and Geordie Williamson (University of Sydney)
A special semester on “Modern Perspectives in Representation Theory” at the Sydney Mathematical Research Institute from May 5 through June 13, 2025. As part of the program, special events are planned for Week 3, May 19 – 23, and a conference running in Week 5, June 2 – 6.