SPEAKER: Professor Dietmar Bisch, Vanderbilt University

TITLE: “Subfactors, bimodules and planarity”

ABSTRACT: A subfactor is a mathematical object with an extremely interesting representation theory. Every subfactor comes with a finite or infinite fusion category whose intertwiner spaces carry an action of Jones' planar operad. This gives rise to many surprising algebraic-combinatorial structures, including a new notion of free product found in joint work with Vaughan Jones. I will explain these concepts and present some examples. The talk will be accessible to non-experts.