Department Colloquium: Integrable curvature flows via a Lorentzian-signature Mobius geometry

Abstract: We consider the problem of determining which equations in the KdV hierarchy come from Hamiltonian flows on curves in a Lorentzian spaceform. To movative this, we give a brief account of the early history of integrable system theory, where the analogous phenomenon for the non-linear Schrodinger equation was first observed, before describing our main tool, a non-Euclidean model for Mobius geometry which, we argue, reformulates the classical geometric perspective on KdV in a way that leads almost immediately to a solution of our problem.

Host: Renato Feres

There will be refreshments in the Lounge (Room 200) at 3:30 pm.