The Interdisciplinary Math–Physics Seminar brings together researchers from mathematics and physics to explore topics at the interface of the two disciplines. The seminar aims to foster interaction across fields, encourage new research connections, and provide opportunities for faculty and students to engage with leading researchers in mathematics, mathematical physics, and theoretical physics.
Co-organizers: Lilit Martirosyan, Mathematics & Statistics · Timothy Daniels, Physics
We gratefully acknowledge UNCW Research & Innovation for its support of the seminar through the Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Abstract: Neutrinos are the last remaining pieces of the Standard Model of Particle Physics with unknown mass. The fact that they have mass at all has been the only new physics discovered in the Standard Model in generations. Although we do not know the scale of neutrino mass, there is strong evidence that it is sufficiently small that measuring it will be even more challenging than its discovery. The smallness of their mass begs the question: do neutrinos acquire mass via the same mechanism as all of the other, charged, elementary fermions? Neutrinos, being neutral fermions, are the only particles that can be Majorana fermions, which might naturally explain not only the smallness of their mass, but also help explain why the Universe is dominated by matter.
Neutrinoless double-beta decay provides both an "intense" source of potentially Majorana neutrinos and a likely non-negligible capacity to detect them. The process probes baryon-number minus lepton-number conservation, the Majorana nature of neutrinos, and possibly the origin of neutrino masses. However, interesting lifetimes to probe already exceed 10^26 yr. I will describe the nEXO experiment, a 5-tonne enriched Xenon experiment with sensitivity extending beyond 10^28 yr, or >100 times the current state of the art, as the project I have dedicated my research efforts to over the past 12 years. I will also introduce a novel program for the direct measurement of the neutrino mass scale using Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy. The University of Kentucky has very recently officially joined the Project 8 Collaboration, but I will highlight the important contributions we have already made to that project.
Abstract: Motivated by mirror symmetry, I will discuss exponential sums over finite-field points of Coulomb branches associated with the (A_1) quiver. I will explain how polynomial Gauss sums arise from the geometry of their fibers, leading to a geometric interpretation of Selberg character sums. Using Evans’s evaluation of these sums, we obtain explicit product formulas in terms of classical Gauss sums. This talk is based on joint work with Junzhe Lyu https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01443.
Cosponsored by Algebra & Number Theory Seminar
Abstract: TBD
Cosponsored by Algebra & Number Theory Seminar
Abstract: Many structures in mathematics can be twisted. Some of these twists are sign twists as they appear in exterior algebras or more generally the Koszul sign convention, twists by characters, twisted group rings as they appear in projective representations, twisted Hopf algebras such as the Drinfel'd double, and so on. We will study this phenomenon and introduce a functorial version of it.
Cosponsored by Department Colloquium
Abstract: TBD
Cosponsored by Joint Department Colloquium and Algebra & Number Theory Seminar
Abstract: TBD
Cosponsored by Algebra & Number Theory Seminar