AMS special session on combinatorial representation theory, topological combinatorics and interactions between them:

Organizers:

Patricia Hersh, Indiana University, phersh at indiana.edu
Cristian Lenart, SUNY Albany, lenart at albany.edu
Michelle Wachs, University of Miami, wachs at math.miami.edu

Location: 217 Ballantine Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana on April 5-6, 2008. Ballantine is right next to the Indiana Memorial Union, just southwest of it; it's about a 5 minute walk from the math department (Rawles Hall) to Ballantine, with Ballantine being northeast from Rawles. Registration is in the east lounge of the Indiana Memorial Union, located on the mezzanine level.

Official AMS web site for the meeting

We've deliberately invited some pairs/groups of collaborators, and I hope some people might even consider coming a day or two early or staying afterwards, e.g. to have more time to work together. Michelle Wachs will give a combinatorics seminar talk on Tuesday, April 8th. Also perhaps of interest is the distinguished lecture which Yuval Peres will give on Monday, April 7th (not part of the AMS meeting, but rather a departmental event).

List of speakers:

Saturday, April 5th

8:30-9:15am, Louis Billera (Cornell University): The complete cd-index of a Bruhat interval (joint work with Francesco Brenti)

9:30-9:55am, Bridget Tenner (Depaul University): Bruhat order structure via permutation patterns

10-10:25am, Robert Donnelly (Murray State University, Kentucky): The numbers game and Dynkin diagram classification results

10:30-10:55am, Hugh Thomas (University of New Brunswick): Sorting orders on finite reflection groups and quotient-closed subcategories of representations of quivers (joint work with Drew Armstrong)


11:10am-noon, Michael Larsen, one hour invited address, Chemistry Building, Room 122, Solving equations in finite groups


2:30-3:15pm, Steve Mitchell (University of Washington): Smooth and palindromic Schubert varieties in affine Grassmannians (joint work with Sara Billey)

3:30-3:55pm, Anne Schilling (UC Davis): Schubert polynomials for the affine Grassmannian of the symplectic group (joint work with Thomas Lam and Mark Shimozono)

4-4:25pm, Julianna Tymoczko (University of Iowa): Geometric representations through Springer fibers and related varieties

4:30-4:55pm, William (Monty) McGovern (University of Washington): Singular sensations in the KGB picture

5-5:45pm, Sergey Fomin (University of Michigan): Cluster algebras associated with bordered surfaces (joint work with Michael Shapiro and Dylan Thurston)



Sunday, April 6th

8:30-8:55am, Brendon Rhoades (University of Minnesota): The cyclic sieving phenomenon, jeu-de-taquin promotion, and representation theory

9-9:25am, Caroline Klivans (University of Chicago): Generalized degree sequences and plethysm (joint work with Vic Reiner)

9:30-10:15am, Francesco Brenti (University of Rome): Parabolic Kazhdan-Lusztig and R-polynomials for quasi-minuscule quotients

10:30-10:55am, Pavlo Pylyavskyy (University of Michigan): Webs, promotion and cyclic cieving (joint work with Kyle Peterson and Brendon Rhoades)


2:30-3:15pm, Alex Postnikov (MIT): From total positivity to positroids (via the Grassmannian, the Bruhat order, and pattern avoidance)

3:30-3:55pm, Lauren Williams (Harvard University): Discrete Morse theory and the totally non-negative part of G/P

4-4:25pm, Mark Skandera (Lehigh University): A quantization of a theorem of Goulden and Jackson (joint work with Matjaz Konvanlinka)

4:30-4:55pm, Margaret Readdy (University of Kentucky): The Rees product of the cubical lattice with the chain (joint work with Patricia Muldoon)

5-5:25pm, Richard Ehrenborg (University of Kentucky): Exponential Dowling structures (joints work with Margaret Readdy)

5:30-5:55pm, John Shareshian (Washington University in St. Louis): Inversion arrangements and lower intervals in Bruhat order (joint work with Axel Hultman, Svante Linusson and Jonas Sj\"ostrand)


There will also be the following one hour invited addresses:

Shi Jin (University of Wisconsin): Hamiltonian systems and Liouville equations with discontinuous Hamiltonians
Michael Larsen (Indiana University): Solving equations in finite groups
Mircea Mustata (University of Michigan): Invariants of singularities in algebraic geometry
Margaret Wright (Courant Institute): Non-derivative optimization: mathematics, heuristics, or hack?


Travel: To get to Bloomington by air, one flies to Indianapolis and then takes a limo ( Classic Touch Limousine, 800-319-0082) or shuttle ( Bloomington Shuttle, 800-589-6004) or rents a car. The drive from the airport takes almost exactly an hour in any case. The limo is more expensive and also somewhat more convenient than the shuttle. The airport is on I-465, namely the highway which makes a loop around Indianapolis; it is near the southwest corner of this loop. To get from the airport to Bloomington, one takes I-465 southeast for a few miles to IN-37, then heads south on IN-37 for about an hour. Detailed directions for getting to Indiana University from all directions are available at the math department web site's section for visitors. Bloomington has lots and lots of one way streets, so be sure not to ignore that in planning if you are driving.

Hotels: Some ideas for places to stay, all of which are within easy walking distance of the meeting:

The Biddle Hotel at the Indiana Memorial Union, 812-855-2536, (on campus, 5 minutes walk from math department and 10-15 minutes walk from the center of downtown; the union has cafes and places to eat and is close to addtional ones. Actually, the union has just about everything under the sun -- a bowling alley, pottery studio, and there are rumors of a shooting range too, though I haven't found it yet.) This is where most math department visitors stay.

Hilton Garden Inn, 812-331-1335, (on the main square downtown, right in the midst of lots of restaurants and cafes; 10-15 minutes walk from math department)

Marriott Courtyard, 812-335-8000, (one block away from the center of downtown, so not quite as much in the midst of things as the Hilton, but close; also 10-15 minutes walk from math department)

Grant Street Inn (812-334-2353, walking distance from campus and near downtown, used somewhat often by the math department to host visitors)

College Motor Inn (812-336-6881, just a block or two north of the Hilton and looks like it's probably a nice place)

Some other options which are a few miles away from campus: Ramada (812-339-1919), Hampton Inn (812-334-2100), Towneplaces Suites (812-334-1234), Radisson (812-334-3252), EconoLodge (812-332-9453), Holiday Inn Express (812-334-8800), Fairfield Inn (812-331-1122), and Travelodge (812-339-6191)

Restaurant and cafe suggestions: Here are restaurant and coffee suggestions, care of the Indiana geometry group.

Opera, etc: Besides being a beautiful campus (particularly in the spring), another attraction is that Indiana has one of the top music schools in the country, and one that focuses a great deal on performance. The IU opera is performing Les Contes d'Hoffman by Jacques Offenbach on the weekend of the AMS meeting. Despite not being an opera buff or anything like that, I've really enjoyed all the IU operas I've attended; IU has perhaps the best opera program in the country, and the students put a great deal of energy into these performances. Other university events are also listed here. There are also numerous caves near Bloomington, so one could even stay an extra day and go caving (e.g. Blue Spring Caverns, Marengo Cave and a bit farther away is Mammoth Caves National Park).

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