VIIth OPORTO MEETING on GEOMETRY, TOPOLOGY AND PHYSICS June 5th-8th, 1998

Contents

Faculty of Science Building of Oporto University

(at P. Gomes Teixeira )

Sala Luis Woodhouse,
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto,
Praça Gomes Teixeira
4050 PORTO, PORTUGAL

Tel: + 351-2-2050290 (extension 218, Dept. of Mathematics;
ask for Prof. Peter Gothen or Prof. João Nuno Tavares)

Fax: + 351-2-2008628

VIIth OPORTO MEETING on GEOMETRY, TOPOLOGY and PHYSICS

The VIIth Oporto Meeting on Geometry, Topology and Physics (formerly known as the Oporto Meetings on Knot Theory and Physics) will take place in Oporto, Portugal, from June 5th to June 8th, 1998. The aim of the Oporto meetings is to bring together mathematicians and physicists interested in the inter-relation between geometry, topology and physics and to provide them with a pleasant and informal environment for scientific interchange.

As in previous years, we are aiming to focus to some extent on certain themes. The main topics for this year will be "Topological Quantum Field Theory and Knot Theory", "Strings and Dualities" and "Deformation Quantization". The meeting will consist largely of short courses, of approximately three lectures each, given by the main speakers, supplemented by a limited number of seminars (more details later). The talks are at the advanced graduate or postdoctoral level, and should be of interest to all researchers wishing to learn about recent developments in the overlap between geometry, topology and physics.

MAIN SPEAKERS and PLANNED COURSES

John BAEZ

(University of California at Riverside):

Spin Foam Models of Quantum Gravity

Brian GREENE

(Columbia University):

Physical and Mathematical Aspects of Topology Change

Leon TAKHTAJAN

(State University of New York at Stony Brook):

Deformation Quantization of Complex Poisson Manifolds

Boris TSYGAN

(Pennsylvania State University):

Recent Developments in Deformation Quantization

David YETTER

(Kansas State University):

Deformation Theory for Categories with Structure

LIST of SEMINARS

	John BARRETT	(University of Nottingham, UK):	State Sum Models for Quantum Gravity
	Rui L. FERNANDES	(Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal):	Poisson Brackets on Symmetric Spaces and Linearization of Poisson Structures
	Alexander KARABEGOV	(LCTA, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Russia):	The Characteristic Class of Deformation Quantization with Separation of Variables
	Marco MACKAAY	(Univ. Algarve, Portugal):	Spherical 2-Categories and 4-Manifold Invariants
	Paddy McCRUDDEN	(MPCE, Macquarie University, Australia):	Representation of Quantum Groups
	Ricardo SCHIAPPA	(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA):	Duality and the Renormalization Group
	Sergei SHABANOV	(Institute for Theoretical Physics, FU, Berlin):	Path Integral Quantization and Riemannian-Symplectic Manifolds

PROGRAMME

Time	FRIDAY - 5	SATURDAY - 6	SUNDAY - 7	MONDAY - 8
9h00-10h00	TAKHTAJAN	TSYGAN	GREENE	TAKHTAJAN
10h05-11h05	TSYGAN	GREENE	TAKHTAJAN	GREENE
11h05-11h30	Coffee	Coffee	Coffee	Coffee
11h30-12h15	SCHIAPPA	SHABANOV	TSYGAN 5)	McCRUDDEN
12h15-14h30	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
14h30-15h15	FERNANDES	BARRETT		KARABEGOV
15h20-16h20	YETTER	MACKAAY 2)		YETTER
16h20-16h50	Coffee	Coffee 3)		Coffee
16h50-17h50	BAEZ	BAEZ 4)		BAEZ
17h20-18h20		YETTER
	RECEPTION - 18h00 1)		DINNER - 20h

INFORMATION for PROSPECTIVE PARTICIPANTS

Participants should aim to arrive by the 4th of June, since the meeting will start in the morning on the 5th. The meeting will continue until the middle or end of the afternoon of the 8th of June.

The meeting will be held in the Faculty of Science building of the University of Oporto, in Oporto's historical centre. Accommodation is available in Residencial Universal near the Faculty of Sciences (see next point).

There are many international direct flights to Oporto (Pedras Rubras) airport. If no convenient flight to Oporto is available participants from abroad may fly to Lisbon and catch an internal connecting flight or take a train to Oporto. The train journey from Lisbon to Oporto lasts a minimum of 3 hours.

TRANSPORT FROM THE AIRPORT TO OPORTO CENTRE:
Due to the substantial number of participants arriving by plane we will not be able to meet most people at the airport, except for the main speakers. There are however good connections from the airport to the centre of Oporto.
By bus:
Number 56: every 15 to 30 minutes; journey lasts approximately 45 minutes. Price of ticket: 160 escudos.
Number 87: every 30 minutes during rush-hour; journey lasts aproximately one hour. Price of ticket: 160 escudos.
The buses will have as their destination Carmo, or Cordoaria, or Praca de Lisboa. These are all in the immediate vicinity of the Faculdade de Ciencias and the Residencial Universal (see next point).
By taxi:
Price around 2500 escudos. A small tip of around 5 percent is appreciated but not essential.

Due to the limitations of the budget it is unlikely that financial support will be available except for the main speakers and some Portuguese students. There is no registration fee.

The meeting is to be held in Oporto (see also) , Portugal's second-largest city, offering many attractive sightseeing possibilities.

Recently Oporto's historical centre was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status. Local food and wine is excellent, and in particular Oporto (Porto in Portuguese) is the home of Port wine.

HOTEL INFORMATION

RESIDENCIAL UNIVERSAL
Avenida dos Aliados, 38,
4000 PORTO
(see right bottom corner of the local map)
Telef.: (351)-2-2006758
Fax: (351)-2-2001055

Single Room: 5000$00, Double Room: 6800$00 both with breakfast.
All rooms with bathroom/lavatory. Close to the conference venue (less than 10 minutes walk). The organisers have made a block booking here which means that rooms should be available.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Peter Gothen (Oporto, FCUP): pbgothen@fc.up.pt
José Mourão (Lisbon, IST): jmourao@galaxia.ist.utl.pt
Roger Picken (Lisbon, IST): picken@math.ist.utl.pt
João Nuno Tavares (Oporto, FCUP): jntavar@fc.up.pt
Home page address: http://www.math.ist.utl.pt/~jmourao/om/omvii/om98b.html

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
Centro de Matemática do Porto, Universidade do Porto
Centro de Matemática Aplicada, Instituto Superior Técnico
Centro Interdisciplinar de Astrofísica, Instituto Superior Técnico
Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Projecto "Física Matemática" PRAXIS/2/2.1/MAT/19/94
Projecto "AGCQ" PBIC/C/MAT/2150/95

APPLICATION FORM

Last modified on 27-May-98