CAPITAL REGION ALGEBRA/NUMBER THEORY SEMINAR 


Speaker:       Lauren Rose, Bard College 

Time:          Wednesday, April 20, at 4:30pm       

Place:         Earth Sciences 152A, Univ. at Albany 

Title:         Modules of Piecewise Polynomials 


Abstract:

For a triangulated region  D  in  R^d, we consider the set of piecewise 
polynomial functions on  D  that are differentiable of order  r, denoted 
C^r(D).  C^r(D)  is an R-algebra and an  R[x_1,...,x_d]-module.  The goal 
of this study is to describe as much of  the algebraic structure of 
C^r(D)  as possible in terms of the combinatorics and geometry of  D.  Of 
particular interest is determining when  C^r(D)  is a free module, and 
computing its Hilbert series in the graded case.  This talk will be a 
survey of the area, concluding with recent work and open problems.

Refreshments at 4:15pm in ES 152.