Research Seminars @ Illinois

Tailored for undergraduate researchers, this calendar is a curated list of research seminars at the University of Illinois. Explore the diverse world of research and expand your knowledge through engaging sessions designed to inspire and enlighten.

To have your events added or removed from this calendar, please contact OUR at ugresearch@illinois.edu

Special Colloquium

Jan 27, 2026   4:00 pm  
161 Noyes Hall
Sponsor
UIUC Math Department
Speaker
Aaron Calderon
Contact
Jeremy Tyson
Originating Calendar
General Events - Department of Mathematics

Title: Pants decompositions and dynamics on moduli spaces

 Abstract: Every closed hyperbolic surface X (or Riemann surface or smooth algebraic curve over C) can be described by gluing together pairs of pants (three-holed spheres). Each X can be glued out of pants in many different ways, and Mirzakhani showed that the count of these decompositions is closely related to a certain Hamiltonian flow on the moduli space of hyperbolic surfaces. In the field of Teichmüller dynamics, counting problems on flat surfaces can be related to a different dynamical system on a different moduli space, which, by work of Eskin--Mirzakhani--Mohammadi and Filip, is in turn controlled by special algebraic subvarieties. In this talk, I will survey some of these results and describe a bridge between the two worlds that can be used to transfer theorems between flat and hyperbolic geometry.

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