The Reading Seminar will be running in Term 2, 2017/2018 every Thursday at 2pm (in place of the Algebra Seminar).

IMPORTANT: IN WEEK 5 THE SEMINAR WILL TAKE PLACE ON WEDNESDAY 07 FEB AT 11AM IN B1.01 INSTEAD OF THURSDAY 8TH FEB.

Location: B3.02, Mathematics Institute.

Organisers: Katerina Hristova and Matt Westaway.

Contact us by e-mail at k dot hristova at warwick dot ac dot uk, m dot p dot westaway at warwick dot ac dot uk.

Aim: The aim of the Reading seminar is to understand affine algebraic groups - their construction, their representations and their associated Lie algebras. We choose the most modern viewpoint explained by J. Milne in his book (link below) where algebraic groups are described in greater generality that the usual approach - in particular, one allows nilpotents in the structure sheaf. The main aim is to understand in more depth the structure of affine groups. Basic knowledge of schemes is required.

The suggested references are J.Milne - Algebraic groups, and T.A. Springer - Linear Algebraic groups. A link to Milne can be found here

PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE:

	speaker	topic	references
Week 1, 11 Jan	Katerina Hristova	Algebraic groups and their basic properties	Milne, Chapter 1.
Week 2, 18 Jan	James Plowman	Examples and Constructions	Milne, Chapter 2.
Week 3, 25 Jan	Matt Westaway	Hopf Algebras	Milne, Chapter 3.
Week 4, 1 Feb	Katerina Hristova	Linear representations of algebraic groups	Milne, Chapter 4.
Week 5, 7 FEB	Alex Torzewski	Isomorphism theorems and Quotients	Milne, Chapter 6,7.
Week 6, CANCELLED	Dmitriy Rumynin	Tannaka Duality
Week 7, 22 Feb	Dmitriy Rumynin	Tannaka Duality	Milne, Chapter 11.
Week 8, 1 March	Matt Westaway	The Lie algebra of an algebraic group	Milne, Chapter 12.
Week 9, 8 March	Vladimir Eremichev	Geometric Invariant Theory
Week 10, 15 March	Mattia Sanna	Cartier Duality for Affine Algebraic Groups