Atkin Memorial Lecture and Workshop
Cohen-Lenstra Heuristics

University of Illinois at Chicago

May 3rd through May 5th , 2013


A.O.L (Oliver) Atkin, a noted mathematician of international fame and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, died on December 23, 2008 at the age of 83. He made lasting contributions to the theory of numbers: the theory of modular forms (Atkin-Lehner operators, congruences, modular forms for non-congruences groups), theory of partitions, and cryptography (Schoof-Elkies-Atkin Algorithm), among others. He was also a pioneer of the use of computers in mathematics. He was born in England and worked at Bletchley Park in World War II. He completed his doctorate at Cambridge in 1952 under John Littlewood. He joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1972. Atkin remained mathematically active until his death.

The annual Atkin Memorial Lecture is aimed at remembering Oliver Atkin's lasting contributions to mathematics and the University of Illinois. The previous speakers are Ken Ono (2009), Steve Kudla (2010), Winnie Li (2011), and William Stein (2012). This year Akshay Venkatesh of Stanford will give the Atkin Lecture on Friday May 3rd 2013 at 3 PM. The lecture will be followed by a two day workshop with the same title as the lecture. The theme of the workshop is Cohen-Lenstra heuristics.

We have some funding available for participants; scroll down for important details.


 

Confirmed Speakers

Thomas Church (Stanford)

Jordan Ellenberg (University of Wisconsin)

Wei Ho (Columbia)

Nathan Kaplan (Harvard)

Andy Putman (Rice)

Arul Shankar (IAS)

Frank Thorne (South Carolina)

Jacob Tsimerman (Harvard)

Akshay Venkatesh (Stanford)

Craig Westerland (Melbourne)

Melanie Matchett Wood (University of Wisconsin)


Funding

This workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation and UIC. As soon as you see this announcement, if you think you might want to attend the workshop, please send an email to rtakloo "at" math.uic.edu. Please state in your email if you will need funding, and whether you are a student. Students should ask their advisor to send a short letter of support to the above email address. Please indicate in your email how much your plane/train/bus tickets will cost. Women, underrepresented minorities, and young mathematicians are strongly encouraged to apply.


Schedule

Friday, May 3

1:30 PM

Andy Putman

Stability in the homology of congruence subgroups (SEO 636)

3:00 PM

Akshay Venkatesh

Atkin Memorial Lecture: Cohen—Lenstra Heuristics

(Lecture Center F4)

4:15 PM

Wine and Cheese Reception

SEO 300

7:00 PM

Dinner

If you plan to attend dinner, please write to rtakloo at math.uic.edu

 

 

Saturday, May 4 (SEO 636)

9 AM  

Craig Westerland

Homology of Hurwitz spaces and the Cohen-Lenstra heuristics

10:15 AM

Jordan Ellenberg

Arithmetic statistics, monodromy, and connected components

11:30 AM

Wei Ho

Analogues of Cohen-Lenstra for elliptic curves

2:30 PM

Akshay Venkatesh

Bhargava's heuristics for large degree

3:30 PM

Coffee Break

SEO 300

4:00 PM

Frank Thorne

Explicit Dirichlet Series for Fields With Given Resolvent

 

Saturday, May 5 (SEO 636)

9 AM  

Melanie Matchett Wood

Abelian and non-abelian Cohen-Lenstra moments

10:15 AM

Thomas Church

Combinatorial stability and representation stability

11:30 AM

Arul Shankar

The secondary term in counting cubic fields

2:30 PM

Jacob Tsimerman

The secondary term in counting quartic fields

3:30 PM

Coffee Break

SEO 300

4:00 PM

Nathan Kaplan

TBA

 

Abstracts of Lectures


Organizers: Ramin Takloo-Bighash and Akshay Venkatesh

A campus map is available here . UIC is easily accessible by public transportation (e.g. UIC-Halsted stop on the Blue Line). For detailed directions see link . A conveniently located hotel is the Crowne Plaza which is on the edge of Chicago's Greektown neighborhood with lots of restaurants and cafes. Another good hotel is the Marriott . This page has lots of useful information about visiting UIC and the city of Chicago. A list of recommended restaurants in the area can be found here . More information to follow.