A conference to celebrate the award of the 2004 National Medal of Science and  2006 Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement to Dennis Sullivan (click here to go to the main page)

Schedule:

• 10:00 -- 10:20     Registration (sign in with the guard, picture id  necessary)
  

• 10:20 -- 10:10     Greetings, Dr. William P. Kelly, President of the Graduate Center
  
  
• 10:30 -- 11:20     Mahmoud Zeinalian, Algebraic String Operation
  
  Abstract: The concept of a structure provides a suitable notion of Poincaré duality in the category of -algebras.  We will discuss the algebraic structure of the cyclic Hochschild complex of a -algebra. This is joing work with Thomas Tradler.
   
• 11:30 -- 12:20     Kevin Costello, Constructing the B model partition function
  
  Abstract: I'll discuss how one can associate to a Calabi-Yau A-infinity category a
  natural state in the Fock space for periodic cyclic homology. This is an analog of the generating function of Gromov-Witten invariants. The construction uses Sen-Zwiebach's Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism for moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces.
  
  
• 12:20 -- 1:30       Free lunch in Math Program Lounge
  
  
•  1:30 -- 2:20        Veronique Godin, Representation of the homology of the mapping class groups
  
  Abstract: I will be talking about Chas and Sullivan's string topology. I will explain how their construction should be generalized to give a representation of the homology of the mapping class groups on the homology of the free loop space of an oriented manifold. This could be used in to study both the manifold and the unstable homology of certain moduli spaces.
   
•  2:30 -- 3:20        Michael Sullivan, Legendrian contact homology
  
  Abstract: Legendrian contact homology is a theory based on holomorphic disks used to study Legendrian submanifolds of contact manifolds. After introducing these ideas, I will discuss recent applications of contact homology as well as attempts to generalize this theory.Time permitting, this will include joint work with T. Ekholm, J. Etnyre, L. Ng and D. Sullivan.
  
  
•  3:30 -- 4:10        Tea
  
  
•  4:10 --  5:00       John Terilla, Quantum backgrounds and homotopy algebra
  
  Abstract: Beginning with Park background data, which is a mathematical idealization of a quantum field theory, one can produce anassociated moduli space, a sheaf of modules, and a kind of generalized flat superconnection.  As a practical illustration, I will cast a BV algebra as such background data and show how the resulting generalized superconnection, in a classical limit, probes various parts of the homotopy structure of the BV algebra.
  
  
•  5:10 -- 6:00      Scott Wilson, Supersymmetic Algebra and Combinatorial Topology
  
  Abstract: Supersymemtric algebra has proven to give a useful underlying structure, if not algorithm, for what appears in differential geometry and it's various offsprings. In the spirit of (some of) Sullivan's work in the past decade, that is, "mining theoretical physics for precious mathematical material", we'll show how supersymmetric algebra appears in combinatorial topology and gives birth to many interesting invariants.
  
  
• 7:00 --              Dinner