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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/T007524/1
Title: IWOTA Lancaster 2020: International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications to be held at Lancaster from 17th to 21st August 2020
Principal Investigator: Blower, Professor G
Other Investigators:
Kitson, Dr D Power, Professor S
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Mathematics and Statistics
Organisation: Lancaster University
Scheme: Standard Research
Starts: 01 February 2020 Ends: 30 September 2021 Value (£): 39,557
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Mathematical Analysis
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
04 Sep 2019 EPSRC Mathematical Sciences Prioritisation Panel September 2019 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Operator theory has developed alongside electrical engineering and control theory. An early application of advanced analysis to communications is Whittaker's sampling theorem from 1908.

In the 1970s, political and cultural factors inhibited the exchange of ideas between mathematicians and engineers in Eastern Europe and Western countries. In 1981, J. W. Helton founded the International Workshop on Operator Theory and Applications as a satellite of the Mathematical Theory of Network and Systems. Since then, IWOTA has grown and has become established as a major scientific organization in operator theory, that holds annual meetings with regular participants who guide the development of the subject through their publications and involvement in scientific journals. In 2004, the EPSRC supported the only previous meeting of IWOTA in the UK, at Newcastle. Recently, operator theory has grown in China, as evidenced by the IWOTA in Shanghai in 2019 with 352 participants. Israel Gohberg was the driving force behind the development of IWOTA, and Gohberg's scientific legacy will be honoured by a memorial lecture at Lancaster by Vern Paulsen of the Institute of Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

In August 2020, MTNS is holding its biennial meeting in Cambridge. It is therefore opportune for IWOTA to meet in the United Kingdom, and for analysts in the UK to reassert their position at the forefront of the subject, and strengthen their links with colleagues in USA, India, Europe and China.

Scientific organization

The local organizing committee for this workshop includes members from Lancaster, Newcastle and King's College London, have the largest groups of analysts in the UK, with 26 academic staff. The IWOTA steering committee consists of senior mathematicians who have organized previous workshops. Following detailed discussions between the PI and the IWOTA convenor J. W. Helton in Shanghai, the IWOTA Steering Committee approved the scientific agenda in this proposal. The organizers of special sessions were selected according to their willingness to create a coherent and attractive agenda of research activity and talks.

The scientific agenda is based upon Special Sessions at which participants will consider specific aspects of operator theory and its applications. From the suggested talks by participants, the Special Session Leaders will select titles for talks and abstracts in advance of the meeting. The topics have been selected by the local organizers in conjunction with the IWOTA Steering Committee so as to develop further the success of previous special sessions on established topics and stimulate progress on newly emerging topics. This will stimulate the development of operator theory within the UK.

The UK already has established research groups in spectral theory for differential operators and operator algebras, and we expect that UK researchers will play a prominent role in these sessions. However, the UK has not yet developed research groups in topics such as free algebraic geometry, and the workshop will help to raise awareness of these new areas and create new opportunities for research, particularly for early career researchers from the UK.

The plenary and semi plenary speakers are established experts on topics related to the special sessions. They have been chosen from several countries, reflecting the importance of operator theory as a scientific endeavour and the international character of the workshop.

SPECIAL SESSIONS

Operator spaces, quantized function theory and noncommutative Lp spaces

Operator algebras

Operator algebras in quantum theory

Noncommutative probability and Random Matrices

Operator semigroups and functional calculus

Spectral theory for differential operators

Operators on analytic function spaces and related applications

Hilbert space operator theory and complex geometry

Free algebraic geometry

Emerging topics

Early Career Researchers

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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.lancs.ac.uk