Richmond Geometry Meeting

Geometric Topology and Moduli

Virginia Commonwealth University

August 12 - 14, 2024


NOTE: VCU has now decommissioned Google Sites, and consequently this webpage will be updated only until June 2024. After that, please refer to the webpage https://math.vcu.edu/rgm/ for updates!

The Richmond Geometry Meeting will focus on emergent research topics while bringing together researchers in algebraic geometry, low-dimensional topology, and mathematical physics.  

In summer 2024,  we will highlight developments in Geometric Topology and Moduli

This meeting is supported by NSF award DMS-2349810

Organizers 


We would appreciate your feedback: Anonymous Feedback for RGM Organizers.

Cherry blossoms on the VCU Monroe Park campus, Richmond, VA. Photo by N. Tarasca.

Speakers

Ross Akhmechet (Columbia University) 

Scott Baldridge (Louisiana State University)

Melissa Chiu-Chu Liu (Columbia University)

Shashank Kanade (University of Denver)

Caner Nazaroglu (University of Cologne, Germany)

Danielle O’Donnol (Marymount University)

Nicola Pagani (Univertsity of Liverpool, UK)

Sunghyuk Park (Harvard University)

Panelists

Scott Baldridge (Louisiana State University) 

Evangelia Gazaki (University of Virginia) 

Nika Lazarian (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)

Andre Perunicic (Google)

Boya Wen (University of Richmond)

Registration

All participants are kindly requested to register here.

Applications for funding are an optional part of the registration. 

If you apply for funding, please register by July 9.

Logistics

Location. All lectures and the Career Panel will be held in Temple 1165 on VCU's Monroe Park Campus. 

The Poster Session will be held in the STEM buildling on VCU's Monroe Park Campus (TBC).

Accommodation. Two otions:

1) A block of hotel rooms has been reserved at the Graduate Richmond. If you would like to take advantage of the discounted rate, please use this link for the booking before 7/10/2024. 

2) A block of hotel rooms has been reserved at the Linden Row Inn. To take advantake of the discounted rate, either use this link or call their front desk at 804-783-7000 and ask for the Richmond Geometry Meeting Group Block.

Childcare. For participants wishing to arrange childcare in Richmond, VA, the Virginia Department of Social Services provides a child day care search tool here:

Please select the search criterion "Richmond City" or the nearby counties "Henrico" or "Chesterfield." A list of contact information for providers with some drop-in childcare options can also be found here.  Other childcare options in Richmond include the YMCA, numerous area churches, and the Weinstein JCC. It may also be possible to locate home daycare providers or babysitters for hire through Care.com.

Poster Session

The meeting will feature a poster session with the aim of showcasing research by early-career participants. 

Titles and abstracts of accepted posters will appear on the website at a later date. 

Everyone is encouraged to apply to present their work at the poster session. The poster session application is an optional part of the registration.

Schedule

Displayed time is in EST


Day 1. Monday, August 12, 2024


12:45 PM – 01:00 PM Welcome message

01:00 PM – 02:00 PM                     

03:00 PM – 04:00 PM                     

05:00 PM – 06:00 PM                     


Day 2. Tuesday, August 13, 2024


09:00 AM – 10:00 AM                     

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM                     

02:00 PM – 03:30 PM                     Career Panel

04:00 PM – 05:00 PM                     

05:30 PM – 07:00 PM                     Poster Session

07:45 PM                         Social Event at Brambly Park


Day 3. Wednesday, August 14, 2024


09:00 AM – 10:00 AM                     

10:30 AM – 11:30 AM                     

12:00 PM – 01:00 PM                     

Lecture Abstracts

Ross Akhmechet


TBA


Scott Baldridge


TBA


Melissa Chiu-Chu Liu


TBA


Shashank Kanade


TBA


Caner Nazaroglu


Constructions and Applications of Mock Modularity at Depth Two


False and mock modular forms along with their higher depth generalizations make their appearance in mathematical physics and geometry in contexts such as Vafa-Witten invariants or Z-hat invariants of three manifolds. In this talk I will describe the interaction between various constructions of these objects and their Fourier coefficients by focusing on a particular example involving rank 2 Vafa-Witten invariants. In particular, I will demonstrate a Hardy-Ramanujan-Rademacher type exact formula for these Vafa-Witten invariants along with a twofold Eisenstein series construction for the pure component of the generating function. In particular, the latter construction leads to nontrivial identities for the Fourier coefficients of the aforementioned depth two mock modular forms, which have expressions as indefinite theta series derived from the wall-crossing formula. This is based on earlier as well as ongoing work with K. Bringmann.


Danielle O’Donnol


TBA


Nicola Pagani


Classification of compactified Jacobians over nodal curves


If X is a smooth proper curve, then the Jacobian of X is a classical and well-studied object in algebraic geometry. When X is singular, the moduli space of degree 0 line bundles is rarely compact, and over the last century many efforts have been made to study the modular compactifications of this space, which we call "compactified Jacobians of X". In this talk we focus on the case when X has at worst nodal singularities. Some compactified Jacobians cannot arise as limits of Jacobians of smooth curves - we regard them as exotic objects. We will see that, if one excludes these exotic cases, then one can give a simple and complete combinatorial classification of all compactified Jacobians. This is based on work of myself with Tommasi, on a paper by Viviani, and on work in progress with Fava and Viviani.


Sunghyuk Park


TBA


Burt Totaro 


Algebraic varieties at the extremes


In trying to classify algebraic varieties, there is a particular fascination in trying to construct varieties with extreme behavior. For example, try to find Calabi-Yau varieties with large Betti numbers, or varieties of general type with many vanishing plurigenera. We construct varieties with doubly exponential behavior for several such problems. Some of these examples are conjecturally optimal. (Joint with Louis Esser and Chengxi Wang.)

Poster Abstracts


TBA