Get-Together Math Seminar

Speaker: Scott Carnahan (Kavli IPMU)
Title: Monstrous moonshine and generalized moonshine
Date (JST): Thu, May 24, 2012, 15:30 - 17:00
Place: Seminar Room A
Abstract: Monstrous moonshine started in the 1970s, when McKay found apparent numerical coincidences relating modular functions on the complex upper half plane and linear representations of the monster simple group. We now know that the numerical relationships that were initially seen were due to the existence of the monster vertex algebra. Later computations by Queen and Norton suggested that certain subgroups of the monster also yielded modular functions from their representation theory, and this was codified by Norton in his generalized moonshine conjecture. I will describe this conjecture, a mathematical interpretation arising from orbifold conformal field theory, and some recent progress.