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2007 - Dr. Ioannis Karatzas
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2010 Wolfe Lecture in Mathematics
Thursday March 18, 2010
4:00pm, Herman Brown 227
Title: Quantum Gravity: KPZ, SLE, and Conformal Welding
What is the most natural notion of a "uniformly random'' two-dimensional Riemannian manifold? To what extent can such an object be defined and investigated mathematically? Discrete and continuum versions of these questions have been studied for decades in the mathematical physics literature (where they are closely related to string theory and conformal field theory). I will describe some recent mathematical progress in this area, including a rigorous proof of the KPZ formula (joint with B. Duplantier) and a rigorous connection to certain random fractal curves called Schramm-Loewner evolutions.
The Annual Wolfe Lectures are supported through a generous gift from the estate of Raquel A. Wolfe in loving memory of her husband, Dr. Alfred S. Wolfe, and his love for math which he instilled in both his children. |