Operator Algebras Seminar, Spring 2001

Organizer: Dietmar Bisch


Thursdays, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, Room 6635, South Hall (irregular meetings) and

Fridays, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm, Room 6635, South Hall (regular meetings).


  • Date: 4/5/01 (Thursday)
    • Speaker: Alexis Alevras, UCSB
    • Title: The standard form of an E0-semigroup, Part I
    • Abstract:
      I will give an update on some fairly recent developments on the
      classification problem of one-parameter semigroups of endomorphisms of
      B(H).
  • Date: 4/6/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Anne Louise Svendsen, UCSB
    • Title: On Invariants for Subfactors
  • Date: 4/12/01 (Thursday)
    • Speaker: Alexis Alevras, UCSB
    • Title: The standard form of an E0-semigroup, Part II
  • Date: 4/13/01 (Friday). Different room and time! Time: 2-3pm, Room: SH 4607
    • Speaker: Jorgen Andersen, Aarhus University
    • Title: The Gauge Theory Construction of TQFT’s and the Asymptotic
      Expansion Conjecture
    • Abstract: I shall provide some details of the topics discussed in
      yesterday’s colloquium talk. In particuluar, I shall explain the asymptotic
      expansion conjecture,
      which is concerned with the semi-classical limit of the partition
      functions (or quantum invariants) associated to a TQFT. This is a
      mathematically well formulated
      conjecture, but it is motivated by a Feynman type expansion of the path
      integral expression of the partition function in a parameter, which plays
      the role of one over Planck’s constant. From its formulation, it is
      clear that this conjecture implies strong relations between these
      quantum invariants and the classical algebraic topology of
      3-manifolds such as Chern-Simons values on flat connections and
      the first fundamental group. Finally I shall present a proof of
      the conjecture for the class of 3-manifolds which are mapping
      cylinders of finite order diffeomorphims of 2-dimensional
      surfaces. This proof uses the Lefschetz-Riemann-Roch theorem on
      a singular algebraic variety and the moduli space of semi-stable
      bundles on a Riemann surface, of which the diffeomorphism is an
      automorphism.
  • Date: 4/20/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Joachim Cuntz, University of Muenster
    • Title: Non-commutative simplicial complexes and the Baum-Connes conjecture
  • Date: 4/27/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Florian Vasilescu, University of Lille
    • Title: Invariant subspaces for some families of unbounded
      subnormal operators
    • Abstract:
      We exploit the resources of Thomson’s and Trent’s
      techniques, in particular the use of Cauchy type transforms
      for certain measures, to obtain some information concerning
      the existence of proper invariant subspaces for specific
      families of unbounded subnormal operators.
  • Date: 5/3/01 (Thursday)
    • Speaker: Hans Wenzl, UC San Diego
    • Title: Categorical Constructions for Subfactors
  • Date: 5/4/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Eberhard Kirchberg, Humboldt University Berlin
    • Title: Classification of non-simple purely infinite algebras
  • Date: 5/10/01 (Thursday)
    • Speaker: Nate Brown, MSRI
    • Title: On Connes’ embedding conjecture
  • Date: 5/11/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Dimitri Shlyakhtenko, UCLA and MSRI
    • Title: Free Araki-Woods factors
    • Abstract:
      Free Araki-Woods factors are free-probability analogs of
      classical Araki-Woods factors (these are hyperfinite von Neumann
      algebras, typically type III factors). The main open problem is to give
      a classification of free Araki-Woods factors. In our previous work, we
      completely solved this classification question for free Araki-Woods
      factors having almost-periodic states. Using Connes’ invariant tau, we
      show that there is a continuum of mutually non-isomorphic free
      Araki-Woods factors with no almost-periodic states (this is in contrast
      to the hyperfinite situtation). We introduce a further invariant of a
      type III factor, and use it to distinguish two non-isomorphic free
      Araki-Woods factors, having the same tau invariant.
  • Date: 5/17/01 (Thursday)
    • Speaker: Marius Dadarlat, Purdue University and MSRI
    • Title: On groups uniformly embeddable in a Hilbert space
  • Date: 5/18/01 (Friday), 11 am at ITP (different place and time!)
    • Speaker: Alain Connes, IHES and MSRI
    • Title: Noncommutative Geometry
  • Date: 5/18/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: George Elliott, University of Toronto
    • Title: Recent progress in the classification of amenable C*-algebras
  • Date: 5/24/01 (Thursday)
    • Speaker: Mikael Rørdam, University of Copenhagen (visiting UCSB)
    • Title: A simple C*-algebra with a finite and infinite projection
  • Date: 5/25/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Ken Dykema, Texas A&M University
    • Title: Decomposability of DT-operators
    • Abstract:
      Operators modeled on certain upper triangular random matrices
      are called DT-operators, and this class includes Voiculescu’s circular
      operator. We show that DT-operators are decomposable in the sense of
      Apostol and Foias. Even more, a DT-operator has a family of invariant
      subspaces parametrized on the Borel subsets of its spectrum, which
      decompose the operator in a well described way.
  • Date: 6/1/01 (Friday)
    • Speaker: Mikael Rørdam, University of Copenhagen (visiting UCSB)
    • Title: Classification of infinite simple C*-algebras

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Noncommutative Geometry and Operator Algebras
Department of Mathematics
Vanderbilt University
Stevenson Center 1326
Nashville, TN 37240
U.S.A. Phone: (615) 322-6672
Fax: (615) 343-0215
E-mail: ncgoa[at]vanderbilt[dot]edu