Laura Schaposnik
University of Illinois, Chicago
February 13, 2025
A Stroll Through Geometric Ideas: During the first half of the talk, we will introduce Higgs bundles and their integrable system. After describing some dualities they satisfy (not only from mirror symmetry but also via other correspondences such as low-rank isogenies), we will then focus on different methods to understand the Hitchin fibration and branes it contains, and especially its singular fibers (monodromy, isogenies, Cayley correspondences). Then, we shall move on to more applied realms and look at how geometric insights can be used to classify viruses, understand news spread, the relation between COVID and dengue, and other questions about the world.
University of Illinois, Chicago
February 13, 2025
A Stroll Through Geometric Ideas: During the first half of the talk, we will introduce Higgs bundles and their integrable system. After describing some dualities they satisfy (not only from mirror symmetry but also via other correspondences such as low-rank isogenies), we will then focus on different methods to understand the Hitchin fibration and branes it contains, and especially its singular fibers (monodromy, isogenies, Cayley correspondences). Then, we shall move on to more applied realms and look at how geometric insights can be used to classify viruses, understand news spread, the relation between COVID and dengue, and other questions about the world.