Tensor spaces, braid groups, and some remarkable quotients
Time and place
1:55 PM on Thursday, April 10th, 2014; NAC 6113
Dr. Zajj Daugherty (Dartmouth College)
Abstract
In his thesis work, Schur constructed a powerful link between the symmetric group and the general linear group via commuting actions on a common vector space. More recently, there has been a cascade of developments surrounding centralizer algebras, with consequences in many fields including representation theory, combinatorics, knot theory, and statistical mechanics. We will take a brief tour of some important examples of centralizer algebras, and discuss how seeing them in this light can reveal a wealth of information.
