EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Integrable hierarchies and singularity theory
Speaker: Professor Yongbin Ruan
Speaker Info: University of Michigan
Brief Description:
Special Note:
Abstract:

Almost twenty years ago, Kontsevich proved an amazing theorem (conjectured by Witten) that the intersection theory of Deligne-Mumford moduli space of curves is governed by KDV-hierarchy. In many ways, this is a mysterious theorem that we don't really understand why it should be true. In the talk, I will described a generalization (again conjectured by Witten). It will take us into the context of integrable hierarchies, Kac-Moody algebra and singularity theory. Now, we understand that Witten-Kontsevich theorem is just a special case of larger correspondence between representation theory and singularities.