Termine

Abstract: The Dehn invariant is known to many as the satisfying solution to Hilbert?s 3rd problem: a three-dimensional polyhedron P can be cut into pieces and reassembled into a polyhedron Q if and only if Q and P have not only the same volume, but also the same Dehn invariant. Generalised versions of Hilbert?s 3rd problem concern the so-called scissors congruence groups of euclidean, hyperbolic and spherical geometry in varying dimensions, and in these contexts one can define a generalised Dehn invariant. In the spherical case, Sah showed that the Dehn invariant makes the scissors congruence groups into a graded Hopf algebra. Zakharevich has shown that one can lift the scissors congruence group to a K-theory spectrum. In this talk I will discuss a lift of the Dehn invariant to the spectrum level, and we will see how it gives rise to a spectral version of Sah?s Hopf algebra. This talk is based on joint work in progress with Inbar Klang, Cary Malkiewich, David Mehrle and Thor Wittich.

Abstract: We consider closed polyhedral manifolds which are non-negatively curved in the sense of Alexandrov. We show that there exists a smooth Ricci flow, starting from such a polyhedral manifold, which has positive curvature operator for positive times. Even more, for positive times the flow has positive co-sectional curvature, which confirms a conjecture of Petrunin. This is joint work with Man-Chun Lee and Felix Schulze.

We consider scalar field theories on the line with Ginzburg-Landau (double-well) self-interaction potentials. Prime examples include the \phi^4 model and the sine-Gordon model. These models feature simple examples of topological solitons called kinks. The study of their asymptotic stability leads to a rich class of problems owing to the combination of weak dispersion in one space dimension, low power nonlinearities, and intriguing spectral features of the linearized operators such as threshold resonances or internal modes. We present a perturbative proof of the full asymptotic stability of the sine-Gordon kink outside symmetry under small perturbations in weighted Sobolev norms. The strategy of our proof combines a space-time resonances approach based on the distorted Fourier transform to capture modified scattering effects with modulation techniques to take into account the invariance under Lorentz transformations and under spatial translations. A major difficulty is the slow local decay of the radiation term caused by the threshold resonances of the non-selfadjoint linearized matrix operator around the modulated kink. Our analysis hinges on two remarkable null structures that we uncover in the quadratic nonlinearities of the evolution equation for the radiation term as well as of the modulation equations. The entire framework of our proof, including the systematic development of the distorted Fourier theory, is not specific to the sine-Gordon model and extends to many other asymptotic stability problems for moving kinks and other Klein-Gordon solitons. We conclude with a discussion of potential applications in the generic setting (no threshold resonances) and with a discussion of the outstanding challenges posed by internal modes such as in the well-known \phi^4 model. This is joint work with Gong Chen (GeorgiaTech).

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