Speaker: 

Professor Gloria Mari-Beff

Institution: 

University at Wisconsin

Time: 

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 306

A geometric realization of an integrable system is an evolution of curves on a manifold M, invariant under the action of a group G, and such that it becomes the integrable system when the action of G is mod out. The best known geometric realization is the Vortex filament flow (VF), a flow of curves in Euclidean space which is invariant under the Euclidean group. The VF equation becomes the nonlinear Shrodinger equation when written in terms of the natural curvatures of the flow - Hasimoto proved this way the integrability of VF -. In this talk I will review what is known about the classical geometry of curves in homogeneous spaces and its relation to different types of integrable systems. In particular we will talk about how one can reduce different Hamiltonian structures to the space of curvatures (Euclidean, projective, conformal, etc) and how those reductions indicates the existence of biHamiltonian (integrable) systems. We will also describe how curvatures of Schwarzian type for curves in homogeneous spaces usually describe evolutions of KdV type. I will present background material so the talk should be accessible, at least in part, to different audiences.