Spring 2017
In the Spring Semester of 2017 we are holding an informal reading seminar on deformation theory. We will use two main sources, course notes by Mike Artin for a graduate course on deformation theory held at MIT in 1996, and the book Deformations of Algebraic Schemes by Sernesi.
Participants will take turns presenting selected material from these books.
The seminar will take place in JCMB 5326 on Wednesdays, 4:30-5:30 PM during the semester.
The tentative outline is as follows:
| Date | Topic | Speaker |
| 25 January | Artin, Sections 1-8 | Alice Rizzardo |
| 1 February | Artin, Sections 9 + 13-15 | Sue Sierra |
| 7 February in JCMB 4325A | Artin, Sections 16-20 | Jenny August |
| 15 February | (Versal) deformations of a fat point (Artin Section 18) | Matt Booth |
| 22 February | No Lecture | |
| 1 March | Sernesi, Chapter 1 (Kodaira-Spencer theory) | Johan Martens |
| 8 March | Sernesi, Sections 2.1-2.3 (Formal deformation theory and Schlessinger’s theorem) | Matt Booth |
| 15 March | Sernesi, Section 2.4 | Sjoerd Beentjes |
| 22 March | Sernesi, Section 2.5+2.6 | Roberto Fringuelli |
| 29 March | Sernesi, Example from Chapter 3 | Tim Weelinck |
| 5 April | the Hilbert Scheme (out of Sernesi, Chapter 4) | Trang Nguyen |
| (12 April?) | Deformations of singularities (following Hartshorne) | Fatemeh Razaee |
References used:
- M. Artin, Deformation Theory, Lecture Notes (MIT, 1996), available online.
- E. Sernesi, “Deformations of Algebraic Schemes”, Springer, 2006, available online (with university account)
The seminar is coordinated by Johan Martens. All are welcome to attend. If you want to be included in the mailing list please email johan.martens@ed.ac.uk