Time

Feb 21 2006 - 5:30pm

Location

MBI Lecture Hall MA 240

Speaker

Luc Lapointe (Universidad de Talca, Chile)

Abstract

I will discuss the importance of positivity in symmetric function theory and combinatorics, giving special attention to the case of Macdonald polynomials. I will then present a new basis of symmetric functions, called k-Schur functions, that have recently been shown to be the Schubert basis of the loop Grassmannian, and discuss how they could help solve some important positivity problems.