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Geometry-Topology Reading Seminar

Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - 10:45am

Robin Pemantle

University of Pennsylvania

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4C8

The problem of extracting the coefficients of a generating function F(z_1 , ... , z_d) is essential to the successful analysis of many combinatorial problems. Analytic machinery exists to aid in this task. In dimension 1 (d=1), this leads to a well understood, automatic means of obtaining asymptotic formulae. In dimensions great than 1, the analogues of these results may be obtained via Stratified Morse Theory. This, however, leaves a host of open questions of effective combinatorial computation with respect to homology bases, whose existence is dictated by the theory but whose relation to specific algebraic-geometric cycles of interest is not, a priori, known.