Online Asymptotic Geometric Analysis Seminar

Welcome to the Online AGA seminar webpage! If you are interested in giving a talk, please let us know. Also, please suggest speakers which you would like to hear speak. Most talks are 50 minutes, but some 20-minute talks will be paired up as well. The talks will be video recorded conditioned upon the speakers' agreement. PLEASE SHARE THE SEMINAR INFO WITH YOUR DEPRARTMENT AND ANYONE WHO MAY BE INTERESTED! Please let the organizers know if you would like to be added to the mailing list.

The Zoom link to join the seminar

The seminar "sea-side" social via gather.town for after the talk

Note that on Tuesdays, the lectures start at:

7:30am in Los-Angeles, CA
8:30am in Edmonton, AB
9:30am in Columbia MO; College Station, TX; Chicago, IL
10:30am in Kent, OH; Atlanta, GA; Montreal; New York, NY
11:30am in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires
3:30pm (15:30) in London
4:30pm (16:30) in Paris, Milan, Budapest, Vienna
5:30pm (17:30) in Tel Aviv.

On Saturdays, the lectures start one hour later, that is at:

8:30am in Los-Angeles, CA
9:30am in Edmonton, AB
10:30am in Columbia MO; College Station, TX; Chicago, IL
11:30am in Kent, OH; Atlanta, GA; Montreal; New York, NY
12:30pm in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires
4:30pm (16:30) in London
5:30pm (17:30) in Paris, Milan, Budapest, Vienna
6:30pm (18:30) in Tel Aviv.

Schedule Fall 2020:

Santosh Vempala, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

Abstract: Computing the volume of a convex body is an ancient problem whose study has led to many interesting mathematical developments. In the most general setting, the convex body is given only via a membership oracle. In this talk, we present a faster algorithm for isotropic transformation of an arbitrary convex body in R^n, with complexity n^3\psi^2, where \psi bounds the KLS constant for isotropic convex bodies. Together with the known bound of \psi = O(n^{1/4}) [2017] and the Cousins-Vempala n^3 volume algorithm for well-rounded convex bodies [2015], this gives an n^{3.5} volume algorithm for general convex bodies, the first improvement on the n^4 algorithm of Lovász-Vempala [2003]. A positive resolution of the KLS conjecture (\psi = O(1)) would imply an n^3 volume algorithm. No background on algorithms, KLS or ABC will be assumed for the talk. Joint work with He Jia, Aditi Laddha and Yin Tat Lee.

Remark: a follow up talk with more details will take place at the Georgia Tech High Dimensional Seminar on Wednesday, September 16, at 3:15pm (NYC time). Zoom link here.