# This Week's Events

## Seminars

Click on seminar heading to go to seminar page.

• ### Algebra Seminar

Monday February 18, 2019 at 13:30, Wachman 617
On the Replacement Property for $PSL(2,p)$

Aidan Lorenz, Temple University

The replacement property (or Steinitz Exchange Lemma) for vector spaces has a natural analog for finite groups and their generating sets. For the special case of the groups $PSL(2,p)$, where $p$ is a prime larger than 5, first partial results concerning the replacement property were published by Benjamin Nachman. The main goal of this talk is to outline the methods involved in providing a complete answer for $PSL(2,p)$ (which was accomplished during the Summer of 2018). This talk is based on a paper in preparation joint with Baran Zadeoglu and David Cueto Noval.

• ### Colloquium

Monday February 18, 2019 at 16:00, Wachman 617
Counting closed geodesics: classical and non-classical behavior

Ilya Kapovich, CUNY

The problem of counting closed geodesics of bounded length, originally in the setting of negatively curved manifolds, goes back to the classic work of Margulis in 1960s about the dynamics of the geodesic flow. Since then Margulis' results have been generalized to many other contexts where some whiff of hyperbolicity is present. Thus a 2011 result of Eskin and Mirzakhani shows that for a closed hyperbolic surface S of genus $g\ge 2$, the number $N(L)$ of closed Teichmuller geodesics of length $\le L$ in the moduli space of $S$ grows as $e^{hL}/(hL)$ where $h=6g-6$. The number $N(L)$ is also equal to the number of conjugacy classes of pseudo-Anosov elements $\phi$ in the mapping class group $MCG(S)$ with $\log\lambda(\phi)\le L$, where $\lambda(\phi)>1$ is the "dilation" or "stretch factor" of $\phi$.

We consider an analogous problem in the $Out(F_r)$ setting, for the action of $Out(F_r)$ on a "cousin" of Teichmuller space, called the Culler-Vogtmann outer space $X_r$. In this context being a "fully irreducible" element of $Out(F_r)$ serves as a natural counterpart of being pseudo-Anosov. Every fully irreducible $\phi\in Out(F_r)$ acts on $X_r$ as a loxodromic isometry with translation length $\log\lambda(\phi)$, where again $\lambda(\phi)$ is the stretch factor of $\phi$. We estimate the number $N_r(L)$ of fully irreducible elements $\phi\in Out(F_r)$ with $\log\lambda(\phi)\le L$. We prove, for $r\ge 3$, that $N_r(L)$ grows doubly exponentially in $L$ as $L\to\infty$, in terms of both lower and upper bounds. These bounds reveal new behavior not present in classic hyperbolic dynamical systems. The talk is based on a joint paper with Catherine Pfaff.

• ### Probability Seminar

Tuesday February 19, 2019 at 15:00, Penn (DRL 4C8)
Asymptotic zero distribution of random polynomials

Duncan Dauvergne, University of Toronto

It is well known that the roots of a random polynomial with i.i.d. coefficients tend to concentrate near the unit circle. In particular, the zero measures of such random polynomials converge almost surely to normalized Lebesgue measure on the unit circle if and only if the underlying coefficient distribution satisfies a particular moment condition. In this talk, I will discuss how to generalize this result to random sums of orthogonal (or asymptotically minimal) polynomials.

• ### Geometry and Topology Seminar

Wednesday February 20, 2019 at 14:30, Wachman 617
Coherence and lattices

Matthew Stover, Temple University

I will survey (in)coherence of lattices in semisimple Lie groups, with a view toward open problems and connections with the geometry of locally symmetric spaces. Particular focus will be placed on rank one lattices, where I will discuss connections with reflection groups, "algebraic" fibrations of lattices, and analogies with classical low-dimensional topology.

• ### Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing Seminar

Wednesday February 20, 2019 at 16:00, 617 Wachman Hall
Two short talks

Abhijit Biswas and Joshua Finkelstein (Temple University)

## Conferences

There are no conferences this week.