Date
Friday September 25, 2026Location
Jeffrey Hall, Room 234Speakers: Ethan Astri, Madeleine Hill, Patrick Taylor, Alex Schneider
Title: Summer Undergraduate Projects Presentation
Date
Thursday September 24, 2026Location
Jeffrey Hall, Room 222Speaker: Tim Knyazhevskiy
Title: An Introduction to Planar and Elliptic Curves
Abstract:
We follow Professor Noriko Yui's notes on Elliptic Curves and Formal Groups. Starting with affine and projective spaces over a field $K$ we consider affine curves and their associated homogeneous forms. We observe some of their properties and define $K$-rational points over each and how counts of these points relate. Moving onto elliptic curves we define the Weierstrass equation and some invariants of an elliptic curve. Using the Weierstrass equation and its variations we then see some results on the classification of elliptic curves by its invariants as well as the automorphism group of an elliptic curve.
Date
Tuesday September 22, 2026Location
Jeffrey Hall, Room 422Speaker: Samuel Leblanc
Title: Homological algebra and artinian categories
Abstract:
We'll introduce the length of an object in an abelian category and review basic notions of homological algebra, like projective objects, exact sequences, and the Ext functors. Objects for which the length is finite are particularly well-behaved, so we'll study situations where this happens.
Date
Friday September 18, 2026Location
Jeffery Hall, Room 319Speaker: Lihuang Ding
Title: Word-Metric Counting Problems in Acylindrically Hyperbolic Groups
Abstract:
Counting in word-metric balls is a dynamical problem with a different sampling law from a random walk. For an isometric action $G$ on $X$, the orbit map and the stable translation length record the asymptotic motion of an element. This talk explains a counting analogue of linear progress for acylindrically hyperbolic groups: generic elements make linear progress in an auxiliary hyperbolic space and have almost maximal stable word and translation lengths. The geometric input contains an action with independent loxodromic WPD elements in the hyperbolic space. The translates of the axes are organized into a projection complex, a hyperbolic quasi-tree. Anchored word-length estimates then produce growth gaps. A linearly recurrence dichotomy then yields exponential genericity of WPD elements for every finite generating set. The talk then describes the consequences: infinite normal quotients have strictly smaller exponential growth and satisfy a strict cogrowth bound, while the number of conjugacy classes intersectinging a word ball is comparable to $|B_n|/n$. We explain the common geometric mechanism linking these results. This talk is based on joint work with Wenyuan Yang."
Date
Friday September 18, 2026Location
Jeffery Hall, Room 234Speakers: Joffre Decore, Jake Feldman, Braydon Hunter, Luke Jonker (Lehigh University)
Title: Summer Undergraduate Projects Presentation
Date
Tuesday September 15, 2026Location
Jeffery Hall, Room 422Speaker: Antonio Nigro
Title: Abelian Categories
Abstract:
We begin this year's curves seminar with an introduction to the theory of abelian categories. We will discuss additive and K-linear categories, image composition, quotients and subobjects, and the analogue of being abelian from a representation-theoretic perspective. We review some basic homological results, and discuss the Jordan Holder and Krull Schmidt theorems, building up to locally-finite categories. We finish with a discussion of coalgebras.
Date
Thursday September 17, 2026Location
Jeffery Hall, Room 222Speaker: Kamryn Spinelli
Title: Hypergeometric zeta functions of double sextic K3 surfaces, part 2
Abstract:
In this talk, we will continue our discussion of recent work by Satoshi Kumabe (Tokyo University of Science) on zeta functions of certain two-parameter families of double sextic K3 surfaces and their relationship to Appell hypergeometric functions. In particular, we will discuss the resolution of singularities for these families of K3 surfaces and its role in their zeta functions. Then, we will then sketch a potential framework for extending this result to multi-parameter families of double sextic K3 surfaces relating to work in progress with Noriko Yui.
The Mathematical Modeling & Dynamics with Delay workshop was held from June 10-12, 2026 at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. It brought together leading researchers in the theory, computation, and applications of delay differential equations (DDEs). DDEs naturally arise in many biological, physical and engineering phenomena.
This August, Math Quest welcomed 33 girls ages 13-17 to Queen's University for a week of mathematics, problem solving, creativity, and community.
From June 22 to 26, 2026, Stirling Hall filled up each morning with students who had come to Queen's University for a single purpose: to spend a week doing mathematics that sits well beyond the standard curriculum.
