Title: A floppy train journey
Speaker: Aporva Varshney
Abstract: King’s Cross St Pancras (KXSTP) is the most well-connected tube stop on the London underground. Now take a 3-dimensional algebraic variety with a single flopping rational curve. Much like KXSTP, we can catch a train to numerous stops in algebraic geometry, including the MMP, derived autoequivalences, ADE root systems, mirror symmetry and enumerative geometry. While this is great for the research community, it causes problems for PhD students writing a ~1hr talk on the subject.
I will take us on a journey, starting by explaining why we care about flops, and moving towards figuring out how we can tell them apart; the answer involves looking at deformations and traversing into a definitively non-commutative world where we meet the “contraction algebra”. In the end, I will mention the connections to some of the other areas I listed above.
Some snacks will be provided before and after the talk.