This proposal is to support a three day workshop in inner-model theory and descriptive set theory to be held June 1-3, 2012 at the University of North Texas. The workshop will be held immediately prior to a conference in logic and dynamics to be held at UNT June 4-8, 2012. The workshop will bring together the leading experts in an active and central area of mathematical logic, inner model theory, as well as experts in associated areas of descriptive set theory. The workshop atmosphere should be conducive to an exchange of ideas among the attendees as well as the dissemination of research results and ideas the experts have been working on. By holding the conference in proximity to the logic/dynamics conference, we feel it also has the possibility of attracting an expanded set of participants. Support for the workshop will allow us to support graduate student travel to the workshop and thereby enhance the impact. We will make publicly available the slides and lecture notes from the workshop to further the information exchange. Having the workshop at UNT will enhance the RTG program at UNT and allow the RTG post-docs and graduate students to interact with leaders in related, but different fields of logic. As with the logic/dynamics conference, we will, where possible, seek to increase the presence of women and underrepresented groups.
which was held at the University of North Texas during the period of June 1-3, 2012. The conference organizers were Steve Jackson (UNT), Grigor Sargsyan (Rutgers), and Farmer Schlutzenberg (UNT). The conference featured some of the leading experts in inner model theory and descriptive set theory from around the U.S. with a few international participants as well. There were 15 featured participants, as well a number of local graduate students attending. The workshop was supported by NSF award 1229043 as well as support from the University of North Texas and the College of Arts and Sciences at UNT. The listed participants were from U.C. Berkeley (5), U.C. Irvine (2), U.C. Santa Cruz (1), University of North Texas (3), University of Texas, Dallas (1), University of Munster (1), University of Florida (1), and Rutgers University (1). The workshop was held on campus at UNT in a state of the art conference room in the building housing the math department. The participants were housed in the Honors College dormitory, a new and modern facility. All of the talks went as scheduled, with the result being a very successful workshop which brought together some of the leading experts in this important area of modern mathematics. A unique feature of this workshop, and of the reasons for having at UNT at this time, was the fact that this workshop was held immediately prior to a larger conference in logic and dynamics also held at UNT (June 4-8). This allowed for some interaction between two groups of researchers with overlapping, but also quite distinct, areas of interest. Indeed, descriptive set theoretic methods are of central importance to both modern inner model theory as well as dynamics and ergodic theory. One of the featured speakers at the workshop, John Steel (Berkeley), gave (in addition to speaking at the workshop) a plenary address at the logic/dynamics conference on the opening morning of the conference. He gave an excellent talk surveying modern inner model theory and descriptive set theory to the logic/dynamics audience, many of whom are using descriptive set theoretic methods in their research. Another workshop participant also spoke at the logic/dynamics conference, and several of the workshop participants attended the other conference as well. Through the NSF funding we were able to fund the participation of several graduate students who we believe benefitted from, and contributed significantly to, the workshop. This contributes to the mathematical infrastructure in these active areas of modern mathematics. The NSF award for the workshop was used to support the participants’ travel and housing costs (this was also supported by UNT). This made the workshop possible, and allowed for a very successful and productive workshop, as well as enhancing the success of the logic and dynamics conference.
