Principal Investigator: Lei Ni, Zhiqin Lu, Chuu-Lian Terng, Benjamin Weinkove
We propose to continue the Southern California Geometric Analysis Seminar (SCGAS). This Seminar has been supported by the NSF since 1991. Geometric analysis is an important part of modern mathematics and is related to many other branches of mathematics. Using analysis as its main tool and differential geometry, topology and algebraic geometry as foundations, it has solved a large number of problems in global geometry, topology, several complex variables and mathematical physics. There is much enthusiasm for its continuation among geometers, analysts and mathematicians of related fields at institutions from the southern California, as well as young geometric analysts cross the country. It is the unique annual meeting of its kind in the Southern California area, and continues to foster interest in geometric analysis at all levels.
The goal of this Seminar is to promote interaction among mathematicians in Southern California who are interested in geometric analysis and related areas and to introduce graduate students and post-docs to some of the best works in geometric analysis. The SCGAS has become an important and anticipated event for the Southern California region, as the success of the first sixteen meetings has demonstrated. In fact the SCGAS also attracts a substantial number of participants from all over the country. The Seminar, organized jointly by UC-San Diego and UC-Irvine, will continue its commitment to encourage and support participation of graduate students and recent PhDs, especially young women and minority mathematicians, and will continue to invite top women mathematicians as speakers. As a new feature to our proposal we will include a junior speaker for the proposed meetings.
The conference has a website at: www.math.ucsd.edu/~scgas/
On the weekend of February 22-23, 2014, the 21st Southern California Geometric Analysis Seminar was held at the University of California Irvine. The conference featured 7 one-hour long talks by the following speakers: Tobias Colding (MIT), John Lott (UC Berkeley), Yong-Geun Oh (IBS, POSTECH, UW-Madison), Jie Qing (UC Santa Cruz), Yanir Rubinstein (Maryland), Natasa Sesum (Rutgers) and Mu-Tao Wang (Columbia). Over 80 participants, from the southern California region, throughout the United States and other foreign countries, attend the conference. More than half of the participants were postdocs (14) and graduate students (29). The conference promoted much interactions and discussions among participants through conference lunch, banquet dinner, and long breaks between talks. The seven talks consisted of the following contents: Tobias Colding spoke about his new work with Bill Minicozzi on the singularities of the mean curvature flow; John Lott spoke about his work with Bruce Kleiner concerning how to "flow" through the singularities in three-dimensional Ricci flows; Yong-Geun Oh described his recent work with Rui Wang on defining contact homology type invariants without symplectivization; Jie Qing reported on his joint work with Changping Wang and Jingyang Zhong analyzing surfaces in conformal Lorentzian 3-manifolds; Yanir Rubinstein talked about his recent work with A. Carlotto and O. Chodosh on the different types of convergence rate of geometric flows. Natasa Sesum described her joint work with James Isenberg and Dan Knopf on warped Berger solutions of Ricci flow; Mu-Tao Wang presented his joint work with Po-Ning Chen and Shing-Tung Yau on defining the center of mass in general relativity. Conference posters were sent out to over 60 institutions throughout the United States. They included a number of teaching-oriented institutions such as several California State Universities located in southern California. The conference indeed attracted a number of participants from local teaching-focused institutions. Participants included 5 faculty and students from Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Northridge, and Cal State San Bernardino. The organizers also made a point to reach out to under-represented minorities. There were twelve women participants and four participants (Abolarinwa, Hilaire, Birts, Reid) of African descent. The URL of the conference webpage is at www.math.uci.edu/~scgas/scgas-2014/2014.php The 2014 SCGAS conference promoted interactions amongst members of the southern California mathematics community who are interested in geometric analysis and related areas. It also provided an important forum for members of the southern California mathematics community to interact with fellow mathematicians from throughout the US and other parts of the world. This year besides participants from California, there were also participants from institutions located in 15 other states - Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin – and foreign countries such as China, South Korea, United Kingdom.
