We are home to 30 faculty, four staff, approximately 60 graduate students, several research visitors, and numerous undergraduate students. We offer exciting and challenging programs leading to BMath, MMath and PhD degrees. We nurture a very active research environment and are intensely devoted to both ground-breaking research and excellent teaching.
News
Two Pure Math professors win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Pure Math PhD student wins Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching
The award ($1000), which is given to up to four recipients annually, recognizes excellence in teaching by students, including intellectual vigour, skill in communication and presentation of subject matter, and concern for the needs of students.
Spring 2023 Graduands
Congratulations to Clement Wan, MMath and Eric Boulter, PhD, who convocated in Spring 2023. Best of luck in your future endeavours!
Events
Number Theory Seminar
Sourabhashis Das, University of Waterloo
On the distributions of divisor counting functions: From Hardy-Ramanujan to Erdős-Kac
In 1917, Hardy and Ramanujan established that w(n), the number of distinct prime factors of a natural number n, and Omega(n), the total number of prime factors of n have normal order log log n. In 1940, Erdős and Kac refined this understanding by proving that w(n) follows a Gaussian distribution over the natural numbers.
In this talk, we extend these classical results to the subsets of h-free and h-full numbers. We show that w_1(n), the number of distinct prime factors of n with multiplicity exactly 1, has normal order log log n over h-free numbers. Similarly, w_h(n), the number of distinct prime factors with multiplicity exactly h, has normal order log log n over h-full numbers. However, for 1 < k < h, we prove that w_k(n) does not have a normal order over h-free numbers, and for k > h, w_k(n) does not have a normal order over h-full numbers.
Furthermore, we establish that w_1(n) satisfies the Erdős-Kac theorem over h-free numbers, while w_h(n) does so over h-full numbers. These results provide a deeper insight into the distribution of prime factors within structured subsets of natural numbers, revealing intriguing asymptotic behavior in these settings.
MC 5479
Algebraic Geometry Working Seminar
Jack Jia, University of Waterloo
Group Schemes: a Functor of Points Perspective
A group scheme is a group object in a category of schemes. This definition, much like other category theory mantras, is a great way to organize knowledge but falls short when one tries to work with it in a hands-on way. I will introduce a more hands-on classification for group schemes, which is aligned with how people work with them in practice. Time permitting, I will illustrate the advantage of this definition in the case of elliptic curves.
MC 5479
Harmonic Analysis Learning Seminar
Erik Séguin, University of Waterloo
A Selected Topic on Fourier-Stieltjes Algebras of Locally Compact Hausdorff Groups
We discuss a particular selected topic on Fourier-Stieltjes algebras of locally compact Hausdorff groups. Time permitting, we may complete the proof a lemma.
MC 5403