2013 Theme Semester on Game Theory and PDEs

Department of Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh
January - May 2013


The goal of the Semester is to expose graduate students, visitors and faculty to some important techniques and results in modern Game Theory. This field of Applied Analysis considers a range of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation, where both classical methods and contemporary advances have shown its profound connection with various other fields of Applied Math, PDEs and Analysis. These include: Hamilton-Jacobi equations, Control Theory, Conservation Laws, Calculus of Variations, second order PDEs, Potential Theory and Probability. The semester will consist of concentrated activities, including week-long six minicourses at graduate level, delivered by leading specialists in the field: Y. Giga and M.-H. Giga, R. Jensen, Y. Peres, S. Sheffield and M. Soner. The Semester will also include a workshop "Advances in Nonlinear Science" in March 14-16, 2013.


Jan 14 - Jan 17, 2013
Professor Yuval Peres , Microsoft
Random Turn Games and the Infinity Laplacian

Public Opening Lecture
Mon 3pm, University Club Ballroom A:
Laplacian growth and the mystery of the abelian sandpile: A visual tour.

Lecture 1: Tue 10am, 226 Benedum Hall
Lecture 2: Tue 3pm, 704 Thackeray Hall
Lecture 3: Wed 10am, G26 Benedum Hall

Lecture 4: Wed 4:30pm, 704 Thackeray Hall
Tonci Antunovic , UCLA
Tug-of-war and the Infinity Laplace equation with Neumann boundary conditions

Lecture 5: Th 10am, 226 Benedum Hall
Stephanie Somersille , Austin, Texas
Biased tug-of-war and the biased infinity Laplace equation
Feb 6 - Feb 8, 2013
Professor Scott Sheffield , MIT
PDEs, Politics and Tug-of-War

Lecture 1: Wed 10am, G26 Benedum Hall
Lecture 2: Wed 3pm, 226 Bendum Hall
Lecture 3: Th 10am, 226 Benedum Hall
Lecture 4: Fri 10am, G30 Bendum Hall
March 4 - March 9, 2013
Professor Robert Jensen , Loyola University
Singular Perturbations of Partial Differential Equations and Games

Lecture 1: Mon 10am, G30 Benedum Hall
Lecture 2: Tue 10am, 226 Bendum Hall
Lecture 3: Wed 10am, G30 Benedum Hall
Lecture 4: Th 10am, 226 Bendum Hall
Apr 1 - Apr 6, 2013
Professor Mete Soner , ETH Zurich and Swiss Finance Institute
Portfolio Management with Small Transaction Costs

References: paper 1 , paper 2

Lecture 1: Mon 10am, G30 Benedum Hall
Lecture 2: Tue 10am, 226 Bendum Hall
Lecture 3: Wed 10am, G30 Benedum Hall
Lecture 4: Th 10am, 226 Bendum Hall
Apr 29 - May 3, 2013
Professor Yoshikazu Giga , University of Tokyo
Evolution Equations with Very Singular Diffusivity

Lecture 1: Mon 10am, 704 Thackerey Hall
Lecture 2: Tue 10am, 704 Thackerey Hall
Lecture 3: Wed 10am, 704 Thackerey Hall
Lecture 4: Th 10am, 704 Thackerey Hall
Apr 29 - May 3, 2013
Professor Mi-Ho Giga , University of Tokyo
Motion of Curves by Sigular Interfacial Energy and Related Topics

Lecture 1: Mon 3pm, 704 Thackerey Hall
Lecture 2: Tue 3pm, 704 Thackerey Hall
Lecture 3: Wed 3pm, 704 Thackerey Hall
Lecture 4: Th 3pm, 704 Thackerey Hall


Funding for the Semester has been provided by the Mathematics Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh .

The poster can be downloaded by clicking on the image in the right hand side.

The organizing committee consists of: Xinfu Chen , Marta Lewicka , Juan Manfredi and Dehua Wang .

Poster: