Title: Random matrices and the Combinatorics of Ribbon Graphs
Speaker: Nathan Hayford
Date/Time/Location: Friday, April 7th, 1:00pm
Abstract: Random matrices have long been a source of interest in mathematics, with applications ranging from number theory to data analysis to quantum gravity. Another unexpected place random matrices have appeared is in the combinatorial enumeration of ribbon graphs. A number of conjectures related to this problem were posed by W. Tutte in the 60’s; the answers to a number of these conjectures came (surprisingly) from a group of theoretical physicists, who used random matrix techniques to approach these conjectures. In this talk, I will try and outline some of the techniques used, and show how random matrices are able to distinguish ribbon graphs by “genus”.