Seminar: "Wonderful compactifications - discrete data at the heart of geometry" by Prof. Eva-Maria Feichtner

Abstract

Wonderful compactifications of arrangement complements as defined by De Concini and Procesi in the early 90s have attracted considerable interest from algebraic, geometric and combinatorial perspectives. In this talk, they serve to exemplify how discrete core data, properly exhibited, determines the topology or geometry of a space. We find that discrete data shared by seemingly distant objects has the potential to unveil unexpected relations. Moreover, recent developments assign a geometry on its own to discrete data which inverts and complements the original line of argument.

Biography

Eva-Maria Feichtner received a Ph.D. in mathematics from TU Berlin, Germany, in 1997. After postdoctoral appointments at MIT and at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, she was an assistant professor at ETH Zurich and was awarded a research professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. In 2006 she was appointed professor of topology at University of Stuttgart, Germany; since 2007 she is a professor of algebra at University of Bremen, Germany. There she is co-directing the Institute for Algebra, Geometry, Topology and their Applications (ALTA). She has been a visitor at many research institutions, notably at MSRI, Berkeley, as research professor and as program organizer. Her research interests lie in the interplay of algebra, geometry, topology and combinatorics, more specifically, in arrangements of hyperplanes, toric varieties and tropical geometry. Since October 2017 she serves as Vice President International and Diversity at the University of Bremen.