Imagine spending eight-weeks on the beautiful Brown University campus in historic Providence, RI, working in a small team setting to solve mathematical research problems developed by faculty experts in their fields.

Imagine creating career-building connections between peers, near peers (graduate students and postdocs), and academic professionals.

Imagine spending your summer in a fun, memorable, and intellectually stimulating environment.

Now, imagine having this experience with support for travel within the U.S., room and board paid, plus a $3,000 stipend*.

The Summer@ICERM 2013 program is designed for a select group of 10-12 undergraduate scholars. Students will work in small groups of two or three, supervised by faculty advisors and aided by teaching assistants.

The faculty... (more)

Being central to gas dynamics, the Boltzmann equation describes gas flows at the microscopic level in regimes from free molecular to continuum. Its descriptive power makes it indispensable for predicting non-continuum phenomena in gases when experimental data is limited or not available. The Boltzmann equation is used in a wide range of applications, from external aerodynamics and thruster plume flows to vacuum facilities and microscale devices. Accurate solution of the Boltzmann equation for modeling gas flows arising in aerospace applications continues to be a challenge. Existing numerical capabilities fall short of capturing the complexities of engineering design. Reasons for this range from the absence of mathematical models that capture the physics properly to higher dimensionality of kinetic models and the resulting high cost of computations to the failure of mathematical theories to handle complex geometries of real life applications.

The goal of this workshop is to facilitate... (more)

Recent years have seen a flurry of activity in the field of Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series. Surprising and unexpected connections between these multiple Dirichlet series and several different fields of mathematics have emerged. This workshop will survey recent results and set the stage for future developments which further interrelate analytic number theory, automorphic forms and combinatorial representation theory.

Particular focus will be given to applications of Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series to the following areas:

• Average value and nonvanishing results for families of L-functions
• Periods of automorphic forms
• Connections between characters sums over function fields and characters of affine root systems
• Metaplectic Casselman-Shalika formulae and deformations of the Weyl character formula

Schubert calculus is the modern approach to classical problems in enumerative algebraic geometry, specifically on flag varieties and their many generalizations. Crystals are combinatorial tools based on quantum groups which arise in the study of representations of Lie algebras. Whittaker functions are special functions on Lie groups or p-adic groups, for example GL(n,F) where F might be the real or complex numbers, or a p-adic field.

The area of intersection between these three topics is combinatorial representation theory. Common tools such as Demazure operators, the Bruhat partial order, and Macdonald polynomials appear in all three areas. Some connections between these three areas are quite new. This workshop will explore these connections.

Sage is a mathematics software system developed by and for the mathematics community, whose mission is to create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab. Its wide span of features, in particular in number theory, combinatorics, and representation theory, together with its friendly community based development, fosters collaborations across disciplines, from the design and implementation of new computer exploration tools to research.

This workshop will bring together experienced Sage and Sage-Combinat developers and experts of multiple Dirichlet series and computational algebraic combinatorics. Like every workshop in the Sage Days series, it will welcome whoever wants to discover Sage, learn more about it, or contribute to it.

As the first meeting for the ICERM Semester... (more)

L-functions—vast generalizations of the Riemann zeta function— are fundamental objects of study in number theory. In the 1980's the idea emerged that it could be useful to tie together a family of related L-functions in one variable to create a "double Dirichlet series," which could be used to study the average behavior of the original family of L-functions. Double Dirichlet series soon became multiple Dirichlet series. It has gradually emerged that the local structure of these multiple Dirichlet series shows a rich connection to combinatorial representation theory.

This program will explore this interface between automorphic forms and combinatorial representation theory, and will develop computational tools for facilitating investigations. On the automorphic side, Whittaker functions on p-adic groups and their covers are the fundamental objects. Whittaker functions and their relatives are expressible in terms of combinatorial structures on the associated L-group, its flag... (more)

Ever since Jakob Bernoulli proved the law of large numbers for Bernoulli random variables in 1713, the subject of limit theorems has been a driving force for the development of probability theory as a whole. The elucidation of different flavours of laws of large number, central limit theorems and laws of iterated logarithm, their extensions to Markov chains or sums of weakly dependent or stationary processes, limit theorems for Banach space valued random variables, etc., have given rise to a rich theory as well as the basic tools for tackling any problem involving randomness.

Today, 300 years after the landmark result of Bernoulli, it is fruitful to look back at the way in which search for limit theorems has shaped the subject. It is also fruitful to consider how the emphasis has evolved over time from simple limit theorems to getting bounds on the rates of convergence or obtaining inequalities, which are of more immediate relevance in applications to nite samples. The current... (more)

In addition to advancing research and discovery in pure and applied mathematics, computation is pervasive across the sciences and now computational research results are more crucial than ever for public policy, risk management, and national security. Reproducibility of carefully documented experiments is a cornerstone of the scientific method, and yet is often lacking in computational mathematics, science, and engineering. Setting and achieving appropriate standards for reproducibility in computation poses a number of interesting technological and social challenges. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss aspects of reproducibility most relevant to the mathematical sciences among researchers from pure and applied mathematics from academics and other settings, together with interested parties from funding agencies, national laboratories, professional societies, and publishers. This will be a working workshop, with relatively few talks and dedicated time for breakout group discussions... (more)

We are pleased to announce the first joint IMI-ICERM Winter School on Computational Aspects of Neural Engineering. The course is directed at graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other researchers from the physical sciences (e.g. physics, mathematics, computer science, engineering) and the life sciences (e.g. neuroscience, biology, physiology). The course will offer participants the opportunity to learn about the foundations of neural engineering and brain-computer interfacing, and develop their skills in computational analysis of neural data for the control of external devices. The topics will range from primers on neuroscience, signal processing, and machine learning to brain-computer interfacing based on multi neuronal activity, electrocorticography (ECoG), and electroencephalography (EEG).

The course will consist of 3 hours of lectures each morning, followed by a 3-hour MATLAB-based computer laboratory in the afternoon. Participants will pair up for these laboratories, and... (more)

Monte Carlo methods have become increasingly important in Engineering and the Sciences. These application areas have posed challenges and opportunities in the analysis of modern Monte Carlo algorithms. The workshop's main focus is on: a) the mathematical techniques and aspects that have been key in the analysis of these algorithms, and b) the identification of techniques that are likely to play a role in future analysis.