This award will support U.S. participants at a four-day conference on Mathematical Physics and Geometric Analysis in January, 2008, at the Fields Institute in Toronto, Canada. While many recent conferences have focused single aspects of geometric analysis, such as symplectic topology, microlocal analysis, or Poisson geometry, none has hitherto brought together researchers representing the gamut of subfields. This conference will gather a wide variety of mathematicians who do not frequently interact. The lectures will cover a broad range of recent advances in the symplectic geometry, representation theory, microlocal analysis, and the interactions of these with physics. With an eye towards the future, a key aim is to identify the significant open problems and conjectures through formal and informal discussions. The comprehensive nature of the conference makes an ideal opportunity, not usually available at a specialized workshop, for graduate students and junior researchers to gain a perspective of the breadth of geometric analysis and its relationships with physics. Moreover, the great range of senior researchers at this conference represent a tremendous resource for junior researchers to seek advice on their work and to foster new collaborations, as they make the transition from graduate school to postdoctoral positions to tenure-track positions.
There has been extensive progress in recent years at the interface between mathematics and physics. This award will allow U.S. mathematicians to participate in a four-day conference in January, 2008, at the Fields Institute in Toronto, Canada, where these new developments will be presented and discussed. Meetings of this kind are often the forum where new collaborations are formed and new research initiatives undertaken. Hence the principal impact of this conference is the advancement of discovery and understanding in the wide variety of mathematical fields that are strongly influenced by physics.
