Gluckfest
From JasonCantarellaWebpage
Geometry, Topology, and Physics 2008
A conference celebrating the 70th birthday of Herman Gluck
November 7-9, 2008. (Preregistration and banquet registration deadline October 31.)
We are pleased to annouce a conference to be held at Rutgers-Newark from November 7-9, 2008 on applications of geometry and topology in physics. The talks will be in Englehard Hall. The conference will celebrate the 70th birthday of Herman Gluck.
Organizing Committee
The conference organizers are Jason Cantarella Jason Parsley and Mark Gluck. You can contact us at cantarella AT math DOT uga DOT edu. The scientific organizing committee members are Thomas Banchoff, Sylvain Cappell, Robert Connelly, Dennis DeTurck, Carolyn Gordon, and Frank Morgan.
List of Speakers.
- Thomas Banchoff, Brown University
- Jason Cantarella, University of Georgia
- David Gabai, Princeton University
- Mohammad Ghomi, Georgia Tech
- Weiqing Gu, Harvey Mudd College
- Blaine Lawson, Stony Brook University
- Frank Morgan, Williams College
- David Singer, Case Western Reserve University
- Gang Tian, Princeton University
Abstracts
Thomas Banchoff, Interactive Geometry of Curves and Surfaces on the Internet
How does interactive computer graphics shed new light on the geometry of curves and surfaces in three- and four-space? How can it change the way we do geometry, and the ways we communicate geometry to our colleagues and to our students? Illustrations will include higher curvatures, self-linking, and two-spheres in four-space.
Jason Cantarella, Helicity as a Characteristic Class
In a series of papers in the 1990's, Gluck, DeTurck, and coauthors (including the speaker) established the relationship between helicity and the spectral geometry of the curl operator. The spirit of those papers was analytic and geometric, culminating in a characterization of the "optimal domain" for helicity in R3. Along the way, we proved that helicity was invariant under all volume-preserving diffeomorphisms isotopic to the identity. In this talk, we survey past results and then present a new topological explanation for helicity. Among other results, this point of view allows us to completely characterize the diffeomorphisms under which helicity is invariant and give an explicit formula for the change in helicity under a diffeomorphism under which helicity is not invariant. This part of the talk is joint work with Jason Parsley of Wake Forest University.
David Gabai, Foliations and surgery on links in S3
We address the general question of when does a thurston norm minimizing surface in a 3-manifold with multiple torus boundary components remain norm minimizing under Dehn filling, e.g. when does a minimal genus Seifert surface for an oriented link in the 3-sphere remain minimal genus after Dehn surgery on a component of the link.
Mohammad Ghomi, Topology of Riemannian submanifolds with prescribed boundary
We prove that a smooth compact submanifold of codimension 2 immersed in Rn, n > 2, bounds at most finitely many topologically distinct compact nonnegatively curved hypersurfaces. This settles a question of Guan and Spruck related to a problem of Yau. Analogous results for complete fillings of arbitrary Riemannian submanifolds are obtained as well. On the other hand, we show that these finiteness theorems may not hold if the codimension is too high, or the prescribed boundary is not sufficiently regular. Our proofs employ, among other methods, a relative version of Nash's isometric embedding theorem, and the theory of Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below, including the compactness and stability theorems of Gromov and Perelman. These results consist of joint works with Stephanie Alexander and Jeremy Wong, and Robert Greene. We will also announce some recent results on 4-vertex theorems.
Weiqing Gu, Calibrated submanifolds in G2 and Spin(7) manifolds
Calibrated geometries have attracted great attentions over the past few years. Calibrated submanifolds not only are important classes of minimal submanifolds, but also play significant roles in string theory. This talk will be concentrated on studying the calibrated submanifolds in G2 and Spin(7) manifolds. Non trivial examples of such submanifolds will be very useful for investigating their moduli spaces, controlling obstruction spaces in their deformations, understanding properties relating the geometry of Cayley submanifolds of Spin(7) manifolds and the gauge theories. Examples of associative and Cayley submanifolds also could be used to construct more minimal submanifolds through "gluing constructions".
Blaine Lawson, Calibrated Subharmonicity and the Dirichlet Problem
Manifolds with geometric structure carry large and useful families of non-standard “subharmonic” functions. For example, any almost complex manifold with hermitian metric carries plurisubharmonic functions. Moreover, it also carries “Lagrangian subharmonic functions” whose restrictions to Lagrangian submanifolds are subharmonic. Similarly, a manifold with calibration φ carries “φ-plurisubharmonic functions” which are subharmonic on all calibrated submanifolds. In all cases the extremals in these families, the “harmonic functions”, are interesting and often satisfy a basic non-linear second-order equation. I will discuss the Dirichlet Problem for such harmonic functions on bounded domains in a riemannian manifold. Existence and uniqueness will be established for quite general second-order equations. The result holds for all continuous boundary data subject to a geometric F-convexity of the boundary, defined entirely in terms of the equation F. Examples include all branches of the Monge-Ampere equation over R, C and H, and all branches of the special lagrangian potential equation.
Frank Morgan, Area-minimizing Surfaces
Every homology class in a smooth compact Riemannian manifold supports an area-minimizing surface S, but even in the nicest manifolds it can be hard to find S or to prove S minimizing. Gluck's work with Mackenzie, Ziller, and me used calibrations after Berger, Dao, Harvey, and Lawson. There is a generalization of calibrations to isoperimetric problems with volume constraints, but for example it remains conjectural today whether geodesic balls are isoperimetric in CP^2. A recent paper of Nardulli, after earlier unpublished work of Kleiner, provides a proof for small balls.
David Singer, Foci of Algebraic Curves
In the nineteenth century, the notion of foci of conic sections was generalized to algebraic curves of higher degree, but this concept has remained somewhat mysterious. I will discuss some of the interesting ways foci arise in diverse areas of mathematics, including: critical points of polynomials and of rational functions, eigenvalues of matrices, stagnation points of vortical flows, and singularities of Schwarzian reflection, as well as examples directly from problems in geometry.
Gang Tian, Compactifying anti-self-dual connections and calibrated cycles
The abstract for Prof. Tian's lecture will be posted as soon as it becomes available.
Tentative Schedule
Friday
- 2-3 registration
- 3pm welcome (15 min)
- 3:15-4:15 Tom Banchoff
- 4:45-5:45 Weiqing Gu
Saturday
- 9-10 David Gabai
- 10:30-11:30 Jason Cantarella
- Lunch (11:30-1:30)
- 1:30 - 2:30 Frank Morgan
- 3-4 David Singer
- 4:30-5:30 Blaine Lawson
- 6-7 pm reception
- 7 pm - ? banquet
Sunday
- 9-10 Mohammad Ghomi
- 10:30-11:30 Gang Tian
- 11:30 closing remarks (15 min)
goodbyes & lunch
Travel arrangements and support.
Everyone is invited to this conference, and graduate students, women, and minorities are especially encouraged to attend. A grant from the National Science Foundation makes it possible for us to partially reimburse the expenses of a large number of graduate students, post-docs and younger faculty who do not have access to travel funds from other sources. A substantial portion of this funding can be committed in advance, and experience shows that additional funds for this purpose are usually available after conference expenses have been met. In ordinary cases, we intend to offer grants of $100-$400 in travel support (reimbursed after the conference with receipts) depending on the distance that the recipient will travel to the conference. Those requesting travel support MUST preregister below, with a desired amount of support. Support decisions have largely been made at this point. You are welcome to request support, and turn in receipts for funding if excess funds are available.
Visas and Support
Unfortunately, due to tightening of both Federal and university regulations concerning the disbursement of NSF funds, we have been told that we will have to be very careful about documenting our support of non-US citizens.
All non-US citizens must show the required visa documentation in order to have their hotel and/or travel expenses paid for. US citizens must furnish Social Security Number and home address. Legal resident aliens must present their green card. Other foreign nationals must show proof of one of the following visa types:
- B-1 or WB visas with an I-94 form (Front and Back) and a Declaration Form.
- J-1 visas with an I-94 (Front and Back) and DS-2019 form, and a letter from the International Office of the hosting University stating that the Professor is eligible to be paid.
- F-1 visas with an I-94 (Front and Back) and I-20 form.
- TN visas need I-94 forms (Front and Back).
Local Arrangements
The Rutgers-Newark campus is easily reached from the Newark train station and the Newark airport. Talks will be held in Englehard Hall. See this map for details on the conference locations. We have reserved rooms at the Robert Treat Hotel, 50 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102. The hotel can be reached at (800) 569-2300 or (973) 622-1000. Conference participants can reserve rooms for any subset of the period from November 6 to November 10 at the special conference rate of $90 for single occupancy and $110 for double occupancy. You should identify yourself as a member of the "Herman Gluck Fest" group (#844) to obtain the conference rate. Note that the hotel may tell you that they are fully booked if you do not give the group, as a block of rooms has been set aside for conference reservations. All conference reservations must be made by October 22.
Getting to the conference
By Train
Take NJ Transit or Amtrak to Newark Penn Station. From there you can either walk to the campus (15 minute walk) or take the Newark Subway two stops to Washington Street which lets you out on edge of campus.
From Robert Treat Hotel
Ten minute walk to conference venue. Cut across Military Park to Broad Street. Go two blocks along New Street until it meets Washington Street. After Washington, New St. becomes a pedestrian plaza. Englehard Hall (for talks) is last building on left at end of Plaza, but before University Avenue.
Parking
On Friday afternoon, we recommend you park in DECK 1 off of University Avenue (see map). This requires you go south on University Avenue, a one-way street). You get a ticket on entry and pay on departure. Usual fee is $10/day but if you pick up a discount coupon at conference registration you will get approximately 50% discount. For Saturday and Sunday there will be plenty of on street parking available all around campus.
Driving Directions
Use Googlemaps. Enter "University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102"
Additional Directions to the Saturday Night Banquet
For attendees: The Banquet will be held in the University Club (essentially our faculty club) in ROBESON CENTER which is on Martin Luther Boulevard on the far west edge of campus. Those attending the conference should continue west on New Street to enter the main Plaza of Rutgers-Newark across University Avenue. From the far side of the plaza (known as Norman Samuels Plaza) you enter Robeson Center and go to the 2nd floor.
Alternative information for those who drive in for banquet: If you are driving in directly to banquet, you can park on Saturday night on Martin Luther King Blvd and enter Robeson Center from the other side. If so, you will be already on the 2nd level of the building and the University Club is right inside.
Suggested dining options for Friday night dinner
Here are some restaurant options, with reviews, as suggested by our local hosts.
Je's 34 Williams St, Newark, NJ 07102 973-623-8848 IRONBOUND. Soul food has never been done as right as it is at Je's, a friendly little storefront dive on Williams that sees folks from all walks of life come through its doors from week to week. Down-home delights, most of them Southern-inspired, like short ribs, fried chicken, catfish, mac-n-cheese and greens highlight the daily spreads, and rumor has it you just can't find better eats in town – just ask the suit-wearing politicians, off-duty cops, and celebs (Queen Latifah, for one) who make frequent pit-stops at Je's. NB If you're coming for dinner, keep in mind they close early.
Fornos of Spain 47 Ferry St, Newark, NJ 07105 973-589-4767 IRONBOUND. This casual spot is popular for sangria and authentic Spanish cuisine. For over 20 years, Fornos has offered generous portions served by an attentive waitstaff. The wood-walled dining room adds comfort and intimacy. There is also an outdoor garden (when weather permits) for relaxing with drinks and conversation. Business casual.
Adega Grill 130-132 Ferry St, Newark, NJ 07105 973-589-8830 IRONBOUND. This attractive restaurant, whose interior features stone fireplaces and archways, wrought iron gates, and walls painted in earthy yellows, is one of the best reasons to venture out to Ironbound. Fabulous Portuguese and Spanish cuisine and wine are the restaurant's specialties (its name, after all, is Portuguese for "wine cellar"), and most of the top dishes focus on fresh fish, seafood or organic meats. The retro-inspired lounge area, meanwhile, is a cool place to hang out, enjoy drinks and make a little conversation.
Iberia Peninsula Restaurant 63-69 Ferry St, Newark, NJ 07105 973-344-5611 IRONBOUND. If you want a Spanish/Portuguese menu featuring an array of surf and turf options, Iberia is your place. Regulars keep coming for the huge servings and the opportunity for a lively dining experience. Known for the rodízio. Business casual.
Theater Square Grill 1 Central St, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark, NJ 07102 973-642-1226 DOWNTOWN. This posh restaurant in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center has so much to offer! A menu with South American influence and specialty seafood dishes is sure to delight. An excellent pre-show dinner choice and an ideal spot for tasty appetizers after the show. Add views of the Hudson and one of the great Newark views of the NYC skyline, and you have a superb dining experience. In the summer, focus changes to the outdoors, with an outdoor kitchen with a wood burning stove and a raw bar. Reservations recommended. On Saturdays and Sundays when a performance is scheduled at Prudential Hall, Theater Square Grill serves a $20 three-course prix fixe brunch, from 12:30pm-showtime. Prix fixe brunch: $22; prix fixe dinner: two courses $40, three courses $48.
Maize 50 Park Pl, Robert Treat Hotel, Newark, NJ 07102 973-639-1200 Note: Located in the ROBERT TREAT HOTEL, WHERE ATTENDEES WILL STAY DOWNTOWN. From the moment you walk into Maize, you are swept away from the bustle of Newark to the secluded and peaceful ambience of this amazing restaurant. An eclectic menu features contemporary American cuisine. The skillful staff anticipates your needs and is willing to recommend wines, entrée selections, and desserts. The cigar bar, meanwhile, is a great place to meet a friend or have a light meal. Expect to see a younger crowd of businessmen and women. Business dressy is appropriate attire.
27 Mix 27 Halsey St, Newark, NJ 07102 973-648-0643 DOWNTOWN. This restaurant and bar, whose cool, colorful interior is the brainchild local designer Madeline Ruiz, serves as a gathering place for Newark's best and brightest. They're attracted, no doubt, by the opportunity of sipping high-end cocktails and listening to live jazz in the stylish bar area. It's the food, though, that truly earns the marks. Eclectic and flavorful, their brand of American cuisine borrows influences and inspirations from several regions, leading to ditties like the shrimp po'boy, Cuban sandwich, chicken enchiladas and yellow fin with grilled corn polenta. The kitchen stays open until 11pm.
Conference Preregistration
We encourage you to preregister in order to help us plan the conference. Those requesting travel support must preregister. THE CONFERENCE AND BANQUET PREREGISTRATION DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 31.
Once you click to submit your registration, an email will be sent to the address above to confirm your registration.
Registration Details
THE CONFERENCE AND BANQUET PREREGISTRATION DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 31. The conference will charge a $35 registration fee ($20 for students without travel support) to cover the cost of coffee breaks and lunches. If you receive travel support from the conference, this fee can be reimbursed along with your other travel expenses. The fee will be collected at the conference as cash or check (no credit cards).
If you want to pay using a credit card, you can do so in advance using the PayPal buttons below. (You don't need a PayPal account to do this.) The charge is $5 less if you pay in this way. You will also be helping the organizers immensely, as early payments allow us to meet early conference expenses without borrowing money from other sources. Note that one of the organizers (Jason Cantarella) will collect these payments in his PayPal account. Please contact him directly if there are any questions about these fees (cantarella AT math dot uga dot edu).
| Faculty and supported graduate student preregistration fee ($30) | Student preregistration fee ($15) |
Banquet Details
There will be a banquet honoring Herman Gluck on Saturday night at a local restaurant. Seating is likely to be limited, so we can only guarantee spaces to people who preregister and pay in advance for the banquet. The cost will be $35 for faculty and $15 for students without travel support, and a vegetarian option will be available. Please contact the organizers if you have other dietary needs (such as a kosher meal).
You can pay for the banquet using a credit card via the PayPal buttons below.
| Faculty and supported graduate student banquet fee ($35) | Student banquet fee ($15) |