A workshop on "Cohen-Lenstra Heuristics" will take place April 3-5, 2013 at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This is part of the annual Oliver Atkin Memorial Lecture and Workshop at UIC. The theme of the workshop is the Cohen-Lenstra heuristics for class groups of quadratic fields, and their recent connections to other areas of mathematics, most notably topology. The organizers of this workshop are Ramin Takloo-Bighash (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Akshay Venkatesh (Stanford). The invited speakers are Thomas Church (Stanford), Jordan Ellenberg (University of Wisconsin), Wei Ho (Columbia), Andy Putman (Rice), Arul Shankar (IAS), Frank Thorne (South Carolina), Jacob Tsimerman (Harvard), Akshay Venkatesh (Stanford), Craig Westerland (Melbourne), and Melanie Matchett Wood (University of Wisconsin).
Class groups and class numbers are of fundamental importance in number theory and have been the subject of intense research since 19th century starting with the foundational works of Gauss. Cohen-Lenstra Heuristics are a series of surprising conjectures that predict the finer behaviors of these objects in the quadratic field setting. Bringing together experts working in the area will create an environment in which to exchange ideas and to start new projects, leading to a better understanding of these fundamental objects.
Additional information can be found on the website's workshop: www.math.uic.edu/~rtakloo/atkin2013.html
The funds from the NSF were used to organize a workshop titled "Cohen-Lenstra Heuristics." The activities started with the Atkin Memorial Lecture delivered by Akshay Venkatesh (Stanford) on May 3, 2013. Venkatesh's lecture was attended by about 150 people. The Atkin lecture was followed by a two day workshop attended by about 50 mathematicians. 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). The speakers of the Atkin workshop were as follows: 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), and Melanie Matchett Wood (University of Wisconsin). The schedule of the lectures, the titles and the abstracts are available at www.math.uic.edu/~rtakloo/atkin2013.html Intellectual Merits: Cohen-Lenstra heuristics are a set of conjectures about statistical properties of arithmetic objects. The workshop concentrated on the recent developments in this exciting subject, introducing the participants to cutting edge research. Broader Impact: Most of the speakers and participants of the workshop were mathematicians in the early stages of their career. The workshop provided these mathematicians with a wonderful opportunity to interact with established experts and learn about Cohen-Lenstra heuristics.
