Speaker: Dr. Nathanaël Berestycki (Stats Lab)
Venue: Winstanley Lecture Theatre
Time: 24/11/2014 20:30, drinks from 20:15

I will describe several simple and natural random systems which exist on the two-dimensional infinite square grid. Often there is a “critical point” for these systems. At this point, it has been predicted for more than 30 years that these systems acquire an unexpected symmetry: invariance under conformal transformations of the complex plane.

I will explain what that means, discuss some examples, and try to convey a few ideas about remarkable progress which has taken place in the last 15 years to describe these objects rigorously, notably Schramm’s famous SLE random curves.