EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Characters and representations according to Frobenius, Wiles and Taylor
Speaker: Seva Joukhovitsky
Speaker Info: Northwestern University
Brief Description:
Special Note: Note the unusual time: 5PM
Abstract:

Representation theory was created by Frobenius in 1896. But originally he did not consider matrix representations of a group G. Instead, he defined the concept of a rank N character as a complex valued class function on G satisfying some functional equation (depending on N). Only later did he realize that such functions can be obtained as traces of a representation by NxN matrices.

Frobenius's definition of higher rank characters was then forgotten and rediscovered only relatively recently by A. Wiles and R. Taylor who used it to construct moduli spaces of representations of Galois group, as a part of the general program culminating in their later celebrated work.

The talk will give a survey of modern approaches to the theory.