This is a joint Nonlinear PDEs seminar with Analysis seminar

A neighborhood of the zero section of the normal bundle of an embedded complex manifold can be seen as a first-order approximation of a neighborhood of the embedded manifold. One would like to know if these two neighborhoods are biholomorphically equivalent. This can be realized as a linearization problem. There are formal obstructions

to the linearization. The Grauert's formal principle is to determine whether the two neighborhoods are holomorphically equivalent when formal obstructions vanish. We will present convergence results under small divisors conditions similar to those in local complex dynamical systems, but in the form represented via cohomology groups in connection with tangent and normal bundles of the embedded manifold. This is joint work with Laurent Stolovich.

The space of totally nonnegative real matrices, namely the real n by n matrices with all minors nonnegative, intersected with the ``unipotent radical'' of upper triangular matrices with 1's on the diagonal carries important information related to Lusztig's theory of canonical bases in representation theory.   This space of matrices (and generalizations of it beyond type A) is naturally stratified according to which minors are positive and which are 0, with the resulting stratified space described combinatorially by a well known partially ordered set called the Bruhat order.   I will tell the story of these spaces and in particular of a map from a simplex to these spaces that has recently been used to better understand them.  The fibers of this map encode exactly the nonnegative real relations amongst exponentiated Chevalley generators of a Lie algebra.   This talk will especially focus on recent joint work with Jim Davis and Ezra Miller uncovering overall combinatorial and topological structure governing these fibers.  Plenty of background, examples, and pictures will be provided along the way. 

Employing standard, as well as novel techniques of asymptotics, three different problems will be discussed: (i) The computation of the large time asymptotics of initial-boundary value problems via the unified transform (also known as the Fokas Method, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokas_method)[1]. (ii) The evaluation of the large t-asymptotics to all orders of the Riemann zeta function [2], and the introduction of a new approach to the Lindelöf Hypothesis [3]. (iii) The proof that the ultra-relativistic limit of the Minkowskian approximation of general relativity [4] yields a force with characteristics of the strong force, including confinement and asymptotic freedom [5].

[1] J. Lenells and A. S. Fokas. The Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation with t-Periodic Data: I. Exact Results, Proc. R. Soc. A 471, 20140925 (2015).
J. Lenells and A. S. Fokas, The Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation with t-Periodic Data: II. Perturbative Results, Proc. R. Soc. A 471, 20140926 (2015).
[2] A.S. Fokas and J. Lenells, On the Asymptotics to All Orders of the Riemann Zeta Function and of a Two-Parameter Generalization of the Riemann Zeta Function, Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. (to appear).
[3] A.S. Fokas, A Novel Approach to the Lindelof Hypothesis, Transactions of Mathematics and its Applications (to appear).
[4] L. Blanchet and A.S. Fokas, Equations of Motion of Self-Gravitating N-Body Systems in the First Post-Minkowskian
Approximation, Phys. Rev. D 98, 084005 (2018).
[5] A.S. Fokas, Super Relativistic Gravity has Properties Associated with the Strong Force, Eur. Phys. J. C (to appear).