Student Probability Seminar

Random Matrices and Group Representations

Speaker: Guillaume Dubach, CIMS

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 512

Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2018, noon

Synopsis:

Several concepts and results of Random Matrix Theory also have a representation theoretic interpretation. The purpose of this talk is to show that this connection is not as esoteric as it sounds. We will introduce the basic concepts of representation theory from scratch, and see a few ways in which characters and representations of the unitary and symmetric groups appear in a random matrix context. In particular, our goal will be to understand an elegant proof of a Central Limit Theorem by Diaconis and Shahshahani that relies on such ideas.