The unifying theme of the Gone Fishing workshops is Poisson Geometry, a field which lies at the intersection of Mathematical Physics and Geometry. It originates in the mathematical formulation of classical mechanics as the semiclassical limit of quantum mechanics. Poisson structures can be traced back to the 19th century classics by Poisson, Hamilton, Jacobi and Lie. Poisson Geometry as an independent field started around 1980 with the foundational works of Lichnerowicz and Weinstein. The field developed rapidly, stimulated by the connections with a large number of areas in mathematics and mathematical physics, including differential geometry and Lie theory, quantization, noncommutative geometry, representation theory and quantum groups, geometric mechanics and integrable systems. A number of major developments took place in the last 15 years; some of the highlights are Kontsevich's formality theorem, the study of Poisson-sigma models and the relationship to the integrability problem for Lie algebroids, the relation with the moduli space of flat connections and various moment map theories, singular reduction, (generalized) complex geometry, cluster algebras, etc.
The Gone Fishing workshops aim to promote interaction between mathematicians, physicists and groups working on areas related to Poisson geometry from different points of view. They bring together leading experts and young researchers in these subjects to encourage more interaction and cross fertilization between different fields. This is becoming more and more urgent as these fields progress deeper. The workshops also provide an excellent opportunity for US based scientists to exchange ideas and promote possible collaborations. One important theme of each workshop is to address important questions and future directions of the subject. The next meetings of the Gone Fishing workshops are: Temple University, Philadelphia, (Sept. 28-29, 2013); and the University of California at Berkeley, (Sept./Oct 2014).
URL: poissongeometry.org
