Site Search
Exterior Differential Systems and the Method of Equivalence
May 5, 2008 to May 9, 2008

Organizer(s)

Jeanne Clelland, William F. Shadwick (Chair) and George Wilkens
To apply for funding, you must register by Fri, Feb 29 2008.
February 1908 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Elie Cartan's paper Les Sous-Groupes des Groupes Continus de Transformations and the introduction to the Method of Equivalence–Cartan's tremendously powerful machinery for uncovering geometry. Thanks in large part to the contributions of two subsequent masters of this mathematics, S.-S. Chern and Robby Gardner, Cartan's Method of Equivalence and his theory of Exterior Differential Systems have found applications from pure mathematics to mechanics, engineering, and computer science.

This workshop brings together leading practitioners in Exterior Differential Systems and the Method of Equivalence to explore recent developments including: the study of Riemannian submersions, holonomy, almost complex manifolds, representation theory and mathematical physics, integrable systems and conservation laws, partial differential equations, including Backlund transformations and solitons, control theory and a new central limit theorem.

May 2008 also marks the 10th anniversary of Robby Gardner’s untimely death and this workshop is held in his honor.


Acknowledgements: photos of Chern and Gardner by George Bergman; design by Concrete Design Communications Inc.


Accommodations:

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Rose Garden Inn. Reservations may be made by calling 1-800-992-9005 OR directly on their website. Click on “Reservations and Availability” then click on “Corporate” at the bottom of the screen and enter the word “math”. Enter Group Code CGMS59 in the “Guest Comment” box, and provide requested information
The cut-off date for reservations is April 8, 2008.

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hotel Durant. Please mention the workshop name and reference the following code when making reservations via phone, fax or e-mail: BJ0000. The cut-off date for reservations is April 4, 2008.

Session Chairmen (PDF 23KB)

Funding

To apply for funding, you must register by Fri, Feb 29 2008. Click to Register
Students, recent Ph.D.'s, women, and members of underrepresented minorities are particularly encouraged to apply. Funding awards are made typically 6 weeks before the workshop begins. Requests received after the funding deadline are considered only if additional funds become available.
Schedule
Monday, May 05, 2008
9:30AM - 10:30AM Robert Bryant Riemannian Foliations in Space Forms [Video available]
11:00AM - 12:00PM Colleen Robles Rigidity of projective homogeneous varieties and Lie algebra cohomology [Video available]
2:00PM - 3:00PM Keizo Yamaguchi Contact Geometry of Second Order [Video available]
4:00PM - 5:00PM Michael Eastwood Prolongation on Contact Manifolds [Video available]
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
9:30AM - 10:30AM William Shadwick, Ana Cascon The Geometry of Probability Distributions: A New Central Limit Theorem [Video available]
11:00AM - 12:00PM Shankar Sastry Parking cars with N trailers and Nonholonomy: reflections on the applications of BC3G [Video available]
1:30PM - 2:30PM Pawel Nurowski GL(2,R) geometry of ODEs [Video available]
2:30PM - 3:30PM Hubert Goldschmidt Infinitesimal isospectral deformations of symmetric spaces of compact type [Video available]
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
9:30AM - 10:30AM Niky Kamran 09:30AM - 10:30AM Niky Kamran Wave equations and the Penrose process in Kerr geometry [Video available]
11:00AM - 12:00PM Thomas Ivey Backlund Transformations and Darboux Integrability for Nonlinear Wave Equations [Video available]
Thursday, May 08, 2008
9:30AM - 10:30AM Peter Vassiliou Geometric Aspects of differential equations in the work of Robert B. Gardner [Video available]
11:00AM - 12:00PM Joseph Landsberg EDS and the Method of Equivalence Lines and Asymptotic Lines of Projective Varieties [Video available]
2:00PM - 3:00PM Christine Scharlach Symmetries for Cubic Forms and Adapted Frames [Video available]
Friday, May 09, 2008
9:30AM - 10:30AM Jeanne Clelland Sub-Finsler geometry in dimensions three and four [Video available]
11:00AM - 12:00PM Ian Anderson Symmetry Reduction and Darboux Integrability [Video available]
12:00PM - 1:00PM Vladimir Matveev Integrals quadratic in velocities and solution of two problems of Sophus Lie [Video available]
2:00PM - 3:00PM Kris Jenssen Hyperbolic Conservation Laws with Prescribed Eigencurves [Video available]
4:00PM - 5:00PM George Wilkens Second-order type-changing evolution equations with first-order intermediate equations [Video available]


Questions about this workshop should be sent either by email to
or by regular mail to:
Exterior Differential Systems and the Method of Equivalence
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
17 Gauss Way, Berkeley, CA
94720-5070.
USA

The Institute is committed to the principles of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.



|