Wednesday, September 30, 2026 · 2:00–3:00 PM · Hill Center 525

Birational cubic fourfolds via an Enriques Cremona transformation

Lisa Marquand , Rutgers University

Abstract: Let X be a very general cubic fourfolds containing an Enriques surface. Such a cubic is conjecturally irrational. A conjecture of Huybrechts predicts that there exists a unique non isomorphic cubic fourfolds Y birational to X. We explicitly construct Y via a new Cremona transform of the ambient projective space and verify the conjecture.

This is joint work with Corey Brooke.

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 · 2:00–3:00 PM · Hill Center 525

Rank and level for symplectic and orthogonal groups

Yuqiao Huang, Rutgers University

Abstract: The level and the rank of characters of finite classical groups have been studied in the work of Guralnick, Larsen, and Tiep (Forum Math. Pi 2020; Invent. Math. 2024). Following their strategy, we establish similar results, for finite symplectic groups in odd characteristic, and for finite orthogonal groups in characteristic 2

Wednesday, october 14, 2026 · 2:00–3:00 PM · Hill Center 525

Title: TBD

TDB, TBD

Abstract: TBD

friday, october 23, 2026 · 2:00–3:00 PM · Hill Center 525

The characteristic polynomial of finite dimensional algebras

Rongwei Yang, University of Albany/SUNY

Abstract: For a tuple of square matrices $A=(A_1, …, A_n)$ of equal size, its characteristic polynomial is defined as $\det (z_0I+z_1A_1+\cdots +z_nA_n)$, where I is the identity matrix and z_j are complex variables. If ${\mathcal A}$ is a n-dimensional complex algebra, then its structure constants give rise to n square matrices of size n. The characteristic polynomial of the structural matrices enables one to study the algebra ${\mathcal A}$ using geometric, topological, and number theoretic means. In this talk, we will consider examples involving Lie algebras and finite groups.