Dear colleagues:

We announce the following seminar at IPMU
(the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe).

Regards,

Satoshi Kondo (IPMU)

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Speaker: 	 Alexander Voronov (University of Minnesota)
Title: 	The n-category of cobordisms and TQFTs.
Date: 	May 25, 2009, 15:30 - 17:00
Place: 	Seminar Room at IPMU Prefab. B
Abstract: 	Since Atiyah and Segal described the notions of Topological
Quantum Field Theory (TQFT) and Conformal Field Theory (CFT),
mathematicians have been looking for a suitable n-category framework
to describe cobordisms with corners and a more general TQFT involving
such cobordisms as a functor from that higher category of cobordisms
with corners to a higher category of vector spaces. The problem deals
with such standard difficulties of higher category theory as weak vs.
strict axioms, coherence, suitable diagrams, etc.: almost every higher
category theorist has this problem in the back of her head, but nobody
seems to have gotten through to a satisfactory solution. In the talk,
I will describe the set up Mark Feshbach and I have found.
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You can check the location from
http://www.ipmu.jp/access/img/KashiwaCampusMap.png

The schedule of the seminar can be checked from
http://db.ipmu.jp/seminar/?mode=seminar_recent