Geometry Seminar

Date: March 3, 2023

Time: 4:00PM - 4:50PM

Location: BLOC 302

Speaker: Yen-Kheng Lim, Xiamen University Malaysia

Title: Solving physics problems from the perspective of (tropical) algebraic geometry

Abstract: I will show how the partition function in statistical mechanics can be interpreted as an algebraic variety. In accordance to earlier literature, the zero-temperature limit is equivalent to taking the tropical limit of the algebraic variety. Previous literature have also generalised the temperature parameter to an n-vector. Here, we show that in the case of n=2, the two components of this generalised quantity are the inverse temperature and inverse temperature times chemical potential, respectively. Other values of n can also be similarly interpreted as various intensive thermodynamic parameters. [Joint work with Mounir Nisse]