Doctorants

Wednesday 20/05 – MSA 2.240 :

• • 12:30 – 14:00 : Lunch + Poster Session

• • 14:00 – 14:45 : Javier Fernandez Piriz – University of Luxembourg
    
    Grassmannians and representations of Lie groups

    Grassmannians are objects endowed with rich geometrical structures that have been studied in algebraic geometry since the 19th century. A useful way to understand these spaces is through the seemingly unrelated theory of representations of Lie groups. The goal of this talk is to present a brief overview of the interplay between these fields and to motivate how computers are useful in answering many related questions.

• • 14:45 – 15:30 : Rodolphe Abou Assali – IECL
    
    Steklov problems and spectral inequalities in planar domains

    Classical spectral problems, such as the Dirichlet and Neumann problems, focus on the analysis of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions with applications to heat conduction, sound propagation, and vibrational modes in domains with boundaries. Other well-known problems are the Steklov and biharmonic Steklov problems with various boundary conditions. Kuttler and Sigillito established fundamental inequalities relating the eigenvalues of these problems in planar domains. These results were later extended to the scalar case on Riemannian manifolds by Hassannezhad and Siffert. We recently generalized these inequalities to the setting of differential forms. In this talk, we present these spectral problems and the Kuttler-Sigillito inequalities in planar domains, and briefly discuss their generalization.

• • 15:30 – 16:00 : Break

• • 16:00 – 16:45 : Quirijn Boeren – University of Luxembourg
    
    Cusps in the AdS/CFT correspondence

    The AdS/CFT correspondence is a powerful tool in theoretical physics, relating string theories on hyperbolic (Anti-de Sitter) manifolds to a conformal field theory on a boundary manifold. It provides some of the most promising models of quantum gravity. As often in theoretical physics the theory struggles with divergences. I will walk you through one such divergence, caused by a construction from hyperbolic geometry: a manifold with cusp—a puncture at infinite distance—can generate infinite summands to the relation, producing a divergence.

• • 16:45 – 17:30 : Valentin Clarisse – IECL
    
    General relativity and Gregory-Laflamme instability

    The Einstein equations are central to general relativity. They relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. As we will see later, they form a particularly challenging system of partial differential equations to study. The first major breakthrough in mathematical relativity was achieved by Y. Choquet-Bruhat, who proved in 1952 the local-in-time existence of solutions to the Einstein equations viewed as an evolution problem. More recently, in 1993 and 1994, R. Gregory and R. Laflamme numerically demonstrated the instability of certain types of black string extensions in dimensions greater than or equal to $5$. In 2012, R.M. Wald and S. Hollands developed a fairly general method and criterion for studying the linear stability of black holes, which can be applied to establish Gregory–Laflamme-type instabilities. The article we will focus on, which is more accessible, comes from the doctoral thesis of Sam C. Collingbourne. It was submitted in 2020 and is entitled The Gregory-Laflamme Instability of the Schwarzschild Black String Exterior. It provides a direct mathematical proof of the Gregory–Laflamme linear instability in dimension $5$.

Thursday 21/05 – MSA 2.240 :

• • 9:00 – 9:45 : Katarzyna Szczerba – University of Luxembourg
    
    AI-informed Non-linear Cox Regression for Time-to-event Analysis

    The Cox proportional hazards model is the most commonly used method for multivariate survival analysis. Despite its many advantages, such as simplicity and interpretability, it has a serious drawback: it fails to capture non-linear relationships. In this study, we propose AI-informed Non-linear Cox Model, a method that uses insights from a highly predictive machine learning model, extracted with an interpretable machine learning tool, to integrate non-linear relationships into the traditional Cox model via means of splines. On simulated data with a deliberately introduced non-monotonic relationship between the predictor and the outcome variable, the AI-informed Cox model outperformed the traditional proportional hazards (PH) Cox model. Its concordance index (C-index) was also comparable to that of the best-performing machine learning model – gradient boosted Cox model. Similar results were observed when the models were applied to a prospective dataset in running.

• • 9:45 – 10:30 : Yingtong Hou – IECL
    
    Butcher series: from ordinary differential equations to Rough Path Theory and Regularity Structures

    In this talk, I will give a gentle introduction to Butcher series (B-series), Rough Path Theory, Regularity Structures, and their underlying Hopf algebras. Rough Path Theory and Regularity Structures provide pathwise frameworks for solving rough differential equations (RDEs) and singular stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs), respectively. We will see that all these pathwise solution ansatz are obtained from iterating Taylor expansions. Therefore, Rough Path Theory and Regularity Structures can be viewed as generalisations of B-series designed for solving ordinary differential equations (ODEs). I will present the derivation of B-series-type solution ansatz for ODEs, RDEs, and SPDEs. Rooted trees and Hopf algebras appear naturally in encoding the expansions of solution ansatz. No prior background knowledge in rough analysis is required. Familiarity with Taylor expansions will be sufficient.

• • 10:30 – 11:00 : Break

• • 11:00 – 11:45 : Luís Maia – University of Luxembourg
    
    Fractional Brownian Fields at H=0: Constructions and Limit Theorems

    Fractional Brownian motion and fractional Brownian fields become singular at the endpoint H=0: the usual covariance degenerates. In this talk, I will explain two normalization that recover a meaningful object when $H=0$. The first, due to Neuman and Rosenbaum, treats one-dimensional fractional Brownian motion by subtracting a local average and rescaling. The second, due to Hager and Neuman, extends this idea to higher-dimensional fractional Brownian fields. In both cases, the normalized fields converge to log-correlated Gaussian distributions. I will then discuss results on Hermite functionals of these fields, both on fixed domains and on growing domains.

• • 11:45 – 12:30 : Juan Mardomingo-Sanz – IECL
    
    Slow-fast limits of stochastic particle systems arising in telomere biology

    The ends of linear chromosomes, called telomeres, shorten at each cell replication, eventually driving the cells to a senescent state when they become too short. The enzyme telomerase, present in cancerous cells and some unicellular organisms, elongates the telomeres and allows cells to continue replicating. Recent experiments show that if this enzyme is inactivated some rare survivors (ALT), which elongate their telomeres without telomerase, will appear and will eventually invade the cultures. I will present a simple stochastic particle system which accounts for the emergence and invasion of these ALT cells under an appropriate scaling with different speeds for each cell type.

• • 12:30 – 14:00 : Lunch

• • 14:00 – 14:45 : Szabolcs Buzogany – University of Luxembourg
    
    Galois and torsion-Kummer representations of elliptic curves

    The absolute Galois group $G_Q$ is the group of all isomorphisms from the field of all algebraic numbers to itself and remains a central object in contemporary number theory.
    A common way of studying $G_Q$ is to study its quotients, by the means of defining a group homomorphism between $G_Q$ and a well-studied group. Examples of these maps are Galois (respectively torsion-Kummer) representations, where the codomain is associated with n-torsion (respectively n-division points) of an elliptic curve. In this talk I will provide a gentle introduction to these representations.

• • 15:00 – 17:30 : Scavenger Hunt in the city (Luxembourg)

• • 19:00 : Social Dinner at Brasserie du Cercle (Luxembourg City)

Friday 22/05 – MSA 3.500 :

• • 9:00 – 9:45 : Gautier Schanzenbacher – IECL
    
    An Introduction to Hyperbolic Geometry: Surfaces, Geodesics, and Entropy

    For centuries, mathematicians tried to prove Euclid’s fifth axiom (the parallel postulate) using only the first four. In the 19th century, Gauss showed that replacing this axiom leads to a new, consistent geometry: non-Euclidean geometry. In particular, if we suppose that there are infinitely many lines parallel to a given line passing through a single point, we obtain Hyperbolic Geometry. In this talk, I will start from these foundations to define hyperbolic surfaces. We will then explore the world of curves, geodesics, and homotopy classes to understand the concept of entropy of the geodesic flow of a hyperbolic surface in the simplest way possible.

• • 9:45 – 10:30 : Francesco Tognetti – University of Luxembourg
    
    Who cares about coinduction?

    Everyone is familiar with the concept of (proof by) induction, though not as many are familiar with its dual. In this talk you will get an overview of what coinduction is, when it arises naturally and how it’s used throughout various areas of mathematics.

• • 10:30 – 11:00 : Break

• • 11:00 – 11:45 : Musbahu Idris – IECL
    
    Algorithmic Aspects of Newman Polynomials and Their Divisors

    A Newman polynomial is a polynomial with coefficients in ${0,1}$ and constant term $1$. We investigate which integer-coefficient polynomials divide a Newman polynomial, focusing on those with small Mahler measure. Using mixed-integer linear programming, we determine the divisibility status of all $8,438$ known polynomials with Mahler measure less than $1.3$. We further exhibit new polynomials that divide no Newman polynomial, improving the best known upper bound on a conjectural universal constant $\sigma$ to approximately $1.419$.

• • 11:45 – 12:30 : Francisco Pina – University of Luxembourg
    
    Statistics of Interacting Particle Systems

    Interacting particle systems can be seen as a system of N SDEs describing the evolution of a collection of agents whose behaviour depends not only on their own dynamics, but also on their interactions with the rest of the system. Such models arise in many different contexts, and a typical example is opinion dynamics, where the evolution of an individual’s opinion is influenced by the opinions of others.
    In this talk, we present the mathematical framework of interacting particle systems and discuss how statistical methods can be used to estimate the interaction law governing the system from observed particle trajectories. In particular, we introduce a nonparametric approach for estimating the underlying interaction function.

• • 12:30 – 14:00 : Lunch

La recherche en climatologie et en océanographie à conduit à résoudre des EDP de plus en plus complexes
sur des domaines de plus en plus variés. Un domaine d’approximation qui semble naturel est celui de la sphère.
Nous proposons dans cet exposé une méthode de calcul basée sur les différences finies sur un maillage de type
Cube-Sphère. Après un rapide aperçu de quelques maillages possibles, nous verrons comment construire le maillage
Cube-Sphère. Puis nous calculerons le gradient sur ce maillage. De manière à illustrer ces calculs, nous résoudrons
l’équation de transport à l’aide d’une méthode de Runge-Kutta en temps filtrée en espace. Si le temps le permet,
nous présenterons les résultats numériques associésà deux test : Le corps solide en rotation autour de la sphère
et le vortex stationnaire.

Le but de cet exposé est de déterminer « explicitement » le dual unitaire d’un groupe de Lie compact.
Pour cela, on commencera par quelques rappels assez généraux concernant les groupes de Lie, les algèbre de Lie,
la mesure de Haar … On verra que si le groupe de Lie G est compact, alors son algèbre de Lie est réductive,
et que ceci est un des points de départ pour la compréhension du dual unitaire (on expliquera au préalable
pourquoi on est peut être amené à s’intéresser aux représentations de l’algèbre de Lie de G). On appliquera
cela dans un cas explicite, à savoir pour G = SU(2). Si le temps le permet, on fera une ouverture sur les
représentations des groupes de Lie non compacts, en parlant par exemple de la notion de (J,K)-modules.

La théorie des représentations a été introduite vers la fin de XIXe siècle par le mathématicien allemand
Frobenius, motivé par une lettre de Dedekind. Cette théorie a connu un développement considérable depuis,
et vouloir essayer de résumer cette dernière relèverait de la folie. Le but des présentations que je vais
faire est de donner quelques idées sur ce qui peut se faire, et mettre en avant certains des nombreux
problèmes qu’il reste actuellement au sein de cette magnifique théorie. Pour cette première présentation,
je commencerai par rappeler les fondamentaux de la théorie des représentations linéaires des groupes finis.
Ensuite, on étudiera ensemble un exemple très intéressant, à savoir le groupe symétrique. Le but étant de
déterminer explicitement le dual unitaire dans ce cas. Si le temps le permet, je conclurai par une présentation
très rapide de la dualité de Schur-Weyl, ce qui nous permettra de voir un exemple où les représentations du
groupe symétrique apparaissent explicitement.

L’approximation des équations aux dérivées partielles est un domaine mathématique lié à de nombreuses autres
sciences. Pour cette raison il est important de tenir compte des contraintes que ces autres domaines
apportent. Après une première partie dans laquelle j’introduirais l’approximation des EDP, je parlerais des
différences finies. Les méthodes de différences finies sont historiquement les premières méthodes a avoir été
développées. Après en avoir énoncé quelques résultats théoriques et présenté quelques schémas classiques, dans
une troisième partie, nous constaterons des limites de ces méthodes et nous proposerons quelques améliorations.

J’introduirai dans cette exposé la méthode des chemins de Littelmann qui permet notamment de
décomposer en irréductible la tensorisation de deux représentations pour une algèbre de Lie simple.
On verra des exemples simples. Si le temps le permet je donnerai des résultats sur les représentations
usuelle de su(n) sur les formes totalement antisymétrique et totalement symétrique.

La notion de racine dans le cas des algèbres de Lie semi-simples est une notion
centrale. Elle est primordiale, par exemple, pour la classification et les
représentations des ces dernières. Le but de cette présentation est de donner un
analogue de ces systèmes dans le cas des superalgèbres de Lie. L’idée sera de
commencer par des rappels concernant la théorie des algèbres de Lie, de redonner par
la suite quelques définitions et propriétés élémentaires des superalgèbres de Lie puis
de présenter la généralisation de la notion de racines pour ces dernières. Si le
temps le permet, on appliquera cela dans un cas concret, à savoir la superalgèbre de
Lie générale linéaire, puis on mettra en évidence l’importance des racines dans la
théorie des représentations des superalgèbres de Lie.