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The original spinfoam amplitude, Ponzano-Regge, has two properties in seeming contradiction: (1.) It can be written as an integral of a product of Dirac delta functions imposing that holonomies be exactly flat, and (2.) In its original sum-over-spins form, its leading order large spin asymptotics consist in Regge calculus, modified to include an additional local discrete orientation variable for each tetrahedron, which, when fixed inhomogeneously, leads to critical point equations for the edge lengths which do not necessarily imply flatness, but allow spikes. Of course, this apparent contradiction between flatness and spikes appears only for triangulations with bubbles, for which both of these formulations of the model are divergent and ill-defined anyway, and this may be the resolution of the paradox. However, we explore the possibility of another resolution of this paradox which may also have relevance for the semiclassical regime of 4D spinfoams, in which a similar sum over local orientations appears.

As part of a visit to Perimeter of a delegation from the ELI Beamlines laser facility in the Czech Republic, Dr. Bulanov will speak about potential topics for collaboration between Perimeter Institute and 
ELI theorists on topics related to high energy laser physics. To highlight the interplay between theory and experiment, Dr. Bulanov will briefly mention two experiments where this was realized and is currently planned at the ELI Beamlines facility.

This lecture discusses the stratification of regions in the space of real symmetric matrices. The points of these regions are Mandelstam matrices for momentum vectors in particle physics. The kinematic strata are indexed by signs and rank two matroids. Matroid strata of Lorentzian polynomials arise when all signs are nonnegative. We describe the posets of strata, for massless and massive particles, with and without momentum conservation. This is joint work with Veronica Calvo and Hadleigh Frost.

High school students learn how to express the solution of a quadratic equation in one unknown in terms of its three coefficients.  Why does this formula matter? We offer an answer in terms of discriminants and data. This lecture invites the audience to a journey towards non-linear algebra.