Collaborative Research: Conference: New England Algebraic Topology and Mathematical Physics Seminar (NEAT MAPS)

The New England Algebraic Topology and Mathematical Physics Seminar (NEAT MAPS) is a series of short conferences designed to bring together researchers in topology, mathematical physics and related subjects working within New England and the surrounding area. This award provides support for two conference meetings, that will take place at Boston University, November 11-12, 2023, and Amherst College, April 6-7, 2024. The goal of these events is to take advantage of the expanding discourse between the research areas of mathematical physics, particularly quantum field theory, and algebraic topology in the contemporary research environment. The conferences will provide a venue for mathematicians in different subfields and different career stages to come together to discuss current trends in these research areas and foster an intellectual community across institutions. Participants will include leading researchers as well as graduate students and post-doctoral scholars. Researchers with expertise spanning a combination of the fields of algebraic topology and mathematical physics have been making substantial advances in a range of areas over the last decade, particularly by exporting and importing techniques across and between these disciplines. This mini-conference series will present lectures from local experts in New England addressing these new developments, including, for instance, the theory of factorization algebras, factorization homology, and the theory of configuration spaces; functorial TQFT and higher categorical techniques and their applications to knot and manifold invariants; geometric representation theory, including versions of the geometric Langlands correspondence as it relates to four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theory; low dimensional topology and operadic algebra; characteristic classes of manifold bundles and gauge theories; Poisson-sigma models and the integrability problem for Lie algebroids. More information will be available at the conference website: https://brianrwilliams.github.io/neatmaps/. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.