Title: Variations on Einstein’ s Equations
Speaker: Nigel Hitchin, Oxford University and the Simons Center
Time: 1 pm Tuesday, Sept. 27.
Place: Auditorium 103, Simons Center
Abstract: Einstein metrics in Riemannian geometry, and the associated Ricci flow, have been studied intensely for many years. The talk will discuss two analogues of these equations — one in conformal geometry, the other in the geometry of connections with skew torsion (or 3-form flux in string-theoretic language). In four dimensions there is a link between the two and explicit solutions to these equations can be written down.