2021-2022Â ACADEMIC YEAR
UPCOMING TALKS
Take a look below for the schedule for Prairie Mathematics Colloquiums this year. If you have any questions about specific activities or event timing, please don’t hesitate to get in touch - we’ll be happy to help.
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Keep watch for event links to upcoming events hosted via online platforms.
POSTPONED
TITLE AND ABSTRACT:
"Hermitian Groups are Amenable"
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Abstract: In this talk, we will first review the concept of inverse-closedness for a pair of algebras and its connection with an important property of groups known as being Hermitian (or symmetric). This property appears when one considers inverse-closedness for a particular pairs of algebras associated to a group G. After recalling and reviewing some known facts, we will aim to show how this concepts relates to another important property of groups known as amenability. Our final goal is to give an affirmative answer to the long-standing conjecture that Hermitian groups are amenable. This solution is a based on a joint work with Matthew Wiersma (University of Winnipeg).
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SPEAKER:
Ebrahim Samei, Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics
(Learn more about the speaker here​)
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WHEN:
Originally scheduled for December 2nd, 2021 but will be POSTPONED to the 2022-2023 Academic Year due to a strike taking place at the University of Manitoba. The Prairie Mathematics Colloquium partners have decided to postpone the talk in solidarity.
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WHERE:
To be determined...
PREVIOUS TALKS
Take a look at our previous speakers, and their talks at various institutions. Follow this links to watch their past live-stream from the event.
KAREN MEAGHER
MARCH 10, 2022
"The Intersection Density of Permutation Groups"
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Abstract:
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SPEAKER:
Karen Meagher
Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Regina
(Learn more about the speaker here​)
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WHEN:
Thursday, March 10, 2022
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WHERE:
The event took place via Zoom due to Covid-19 restrictions.
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The recorded livestream will be available soon!
STEVE KIRKLAND
JANUARY 27, 2022
"State Transfer for Paths with Weighted Loops"​
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Abstract:
Faithful transmission of information is an important task in the area of quantum information processing. One approach to that task is to use a network of coupled spins (which can be modelled as an undirected graph) and to transfer a quantum state from one vertex to another. We can then consider the fidelity of transmission from a source vertex to a target vertex to measure the accuracy of the transmission. The last two decades have seen substantial growth in research on the topic of state transfer in spin networks.
In this talk, we consider a spin network consisting of an unweighted path on n vertices, to which a loop of weight w has been added at each end vertex. Let f(t) denote the fidelity of state transfer from one end vertex to the other at time t; it turns out that for any t, 0 ≤ f(t) ≤ 1, and that f(t) close to 1 corresponds to high accuracy of transmission, while f(t) close to 0 corresponds to poor accuracy. We give upper and lower bounds on f(t) in terms of w, nand t; further, given a > 0 we discuss the values of t for which f(t) > 1-a. In particular, the results show that the fidelity can be made close to 1 via suitable choices of w, n and t. Throughout, the results rely on a detailed analysis of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the associated adjacency matrix.
This talk is based on joint work with Christopher van Bommel.
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SPEAKER:
Steve Kirkland
Professor, Department of Mathematics
Associate Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies
University of Manitoba
(Learn more about the speaker here​)
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WHEN:
Thursday, January 27, 2022
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WHERE:
The event took place via Zoom due to Covid-19 restrictions.
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Watch recorded livestream through the link below:
Rewatch, rewind and review last years speakers from the previous academic year!