Expository Talk by Prof. Hugh Thomas (Birth and death curves for representations of a grid poset)

Speaker: Prof. Hugh Thomas (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada)

Title: Birth and death curves for representations of a grid poset

Abstract: In the setting of representations of a two-dimensional grid poset, I will explain how to make a formal definition of “birth curves” and “death curves” which match the obvious intuition for direct sums of spread modules. I will go on to discuss a kind of pairing between birth curves and death curves, and important properties of the invariant of representations which counts the number of birth curves. A key role in our work is played by the representation theory of gentle algebras, some central elements of which I shall explain.
This is joint work with Thomas Br¨ustle, Steve Oudot, and Luis Scoccola, available at arXiv:2505.13412.

Time: 10:00-11:30, June 24, 2025

Location: OIST, Lab 4, Floor E, Room L4E48

Zoom Link: Will be posted closer to the event!

This talk is part of the Thematic Program TDA PARTI: Topological Data Analysis, Persistence And Representation Theory Intertwined.