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Mirror Symmetry and Zeta Values (Sheel Ganatra, USC)
February 14 @ 4:15 pm - 5:30 pm
Title: Mirror Symmetry and Zeta Values
Speaker: Sheel Ganatra, University of Southern California
Abstract: Mirror symmetry is a conjectural correspondence, born out of ideas in string theory, between two geometries of very different nature. In its earliest mathematical appearance, mirror symmetry was used to make predictions for certain numerical measurements of one space in terms of utterly different calculations on a mirror space. Mysteriously, certain famous arithmetic constants, the Riemann zeta values, were repeatedly observed to appear in the transformation taking measurements on one side to measurements on the mirror side. I will survey these ideas and then present joint work with Abouzaid, Iritani, and Sheridan explaining a geometric origin for the appearance of these constants in mirror symmetry.
Sheel Ganatra is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California. Prior to coming to USC in 2016, he completed his PhD at MIT with Denis Auroux in 2012 (two years of which were on exchange at UC Berkeley) and spent 4 years as a Szegö Assistant Professor and NSF postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford. His research interests include symplectic geometry and mirror symmetry, and he is the recipient of an NSF Career Award and a Simons Fellowship.