The goal of this Mini-Workshop is to learn about the newest developments in the study of derived categories of algebraic varieties through two mini-courses taught by two leading experts in the subject. The target audience are graduate students and postdocs, but all others are welcome as well.
Please register via an informal email to ulirsch@umich.edu by March 10. Our aim is to provide accommodations for external participants, but we would encourage all participants to find their own funding for transportation.
The goal is to acquaint local graduate students with the basic material that is needed in order to understand what is going on in the mini-courses. Other participants are welcome to join as well.
Jack Huizenga: Birational geometry of moduli spaces of sheaves and Bridgeland stability
Abstract: The subject of the birational geometry of moduli spaces seeks to understand the possible compactifications of a moduli space parameterizing "nice" objects. Compactifying a moduli space usually requires that we allow our space to parameterize certain "degenerate" objects, in addition to the objects we initially wanted to study. In recent years the concept of Bridgeland stability has lead to tremendous activity in the study of the birational geometry of moduli spaces of sheaves. We will begin by recalling the classical birational geometry of Hilbert schemes of points, which are some of the simplest moduli spaces of sheaves. Then we will see that Bridgeland stability conditions allow us to better understand this birational geometry and describe the "degenerate" objects that are added in new compactifications. Finally, we will see how the positivity lemma of Bayer and Macri allows us to prove new results about the birational geometry of moduli spaces of sheaves. In particular, we will focus on the computation of the ample cone of the moduli space of sheaves on a surface.
Alex Perry: Homological projective geometry
Abstract: This minicourse is concerned with the structure of derived categories of algebraic varieties. One of the most fundamental problems in this area is to determine when the derived categories of two varieties are equivalent, or more generally have a large subcategory in common. Besides being of intrinsic interest, such relations between derived categories often have strong geometric consequences.
Our goal is to explain some surprising "homological" counterparts of constructions and results in classical projective geometry, which give powerful tools for attacking the above problem. We will start by studying semiorthogonal decompositions -- a way to break up the derived category into smaller pieces -- through many examples. Then we will discuss Kuznetsov's theory of homological projective duality, which gives a mechanism for understanding the derived categories of linear sections of a fixed variety. Finally, we will discuss a categorical version of the join of two projective varieties, and explain how it can be used to greatly expand the applicability of homological projective duality. An underlying theme of the lectures will be the use of "noncommutative" varieties, especially as resolutions of singularities.
Zili Zhang: Introduction to derived categories and t-structures
Abstract: Derived categories were introduced to have a better foundation for the theory of derived functors. In this talk, we will start with the general construction of derived categories for abelian categories. Then we restrict to the bounded derived category derived categories of coherent sheaves on schemes and we will defined push-forward, pull-back and tensor product in the derived sense. We will focus on illustrating why working on chain complexes is better than single objects. As applications, the projection formula and Serre duality can be promoted to a derived version. We will also define t-structures of triangulated categories and their hearts. An interesting example will be presented showing that an injective morphism becomes surjective when t-structures change.
Martin Ulirsch (University of Michigan)
We acknowledge support from NSF Grant 1702114 (PI: Mircea Mustaţă).
Jack Huizenga, Penn State University
Alex Perry, Columbia University
Lizhen Ji, University of Michigan
Shizhuo Zhang, Indiana University
Bhargav Bhatt, University of Michigan
Jeffrey Lagarias, University of Michigan
Karen Smith, University of Michigan
Jun Wang, Ohio State University
Dylan Spence, Indiana University
Xuqiang QIN, Indiana University
Gilyoung Cheong, University of Michigan
Devlin Mallory, University of Michigan
Nancy Wang, University of Michigan
Emanuel Reinecke, University of Michigan
Yajnaseni Dutta, Northwestern
David Schwein, University of Michigan
Sayanta Mandal, UIC
Dmitry Zakharov, Central Michigan University
Aalong Li, Indiana University
Shaopeng Zhu, University of Maryland
Ghosh, Arkabrata, Central Michigan University
Sanal Prasad, University of Michigan
Wai Kit Yeung, Indiana University
Steffen Marcus, The College of New Jersey
Mircea Mustata, University of Michigan
Martin Ulirsch, University of Michigan
Eamon Quinlan, University of Michigan
Kannappan Sampath, University of Michigan
Shubhodip Mondal, University of Michigan
Haoyang Guo, University of Michigan
Yongbin Ruan, University of Michigan
Junyan Xu, Indiana University