number theory seminar again

[William Stein]

Hi,

The next number theory seminar will be THURSDAY, Oct 4 at 10:30am in
Padelford Hall.

SPEAKER: Ben Lundell (Univ of Washington)

ABSTRACT:

In this talk, I'll outline my deformation theoretic proof of the
Pollack-Weston formula. I'll start by recalling the definition of
eta-invariants, and discussing them in the context of finite flat
complete intersection rings. Next, I'll give a short introduction to
deformation theory for Galois representations, and explain how to use
it to reduce the Pollack-Weston result to a statement about Galois
cohomological elements called Selmer groups. Finally, I mention some
results of Ralph Greenberg which allow us to deduce the theorem.

If none of the topics in this description are familiar to you, you
might try reading Glenn Stevens' short survey "An Overview of the
Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem" [1]. It gives an excellent overview of
many of the ideas which will appear in my talk.

[1] http://wstein.org/5canz/incoming/stevens-an_overview_of_proof_of_flt.pdf

The login/password is the same as for the UW course website...



--
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org