Speaker: Hassan Aref
Title: Vortices and Polynomials
Affiliation: Virginia Tech
Date: Friday, February 1, 2008.
Place and Time: Room 101, Love Building, 3:35-4:30 pm.
Refreshments: Room 204, Love Building, 3:00 pm.

Abstract. A number of intriguing connections appear between relative equilibrium configurations of a set of point vortices in the plane and polynomials that have the positions of these vortices as their roots. Several such connections will be shown with the hope that members of the audience with more experience in the theory of polynomials and algebraic geometry might suggest further avenues for exploration or new techniques and approaches to finding solutions. Physical motivations for seeking such relative equilibria will be provided and a survey of known results given.