Abstract:One of the central foci of representation theory in the 20th century was the representation theory of Lie algebras, starting with finite dimensional algebras and expanding to a rich, but still mysterious infinite dimensional theory. In this century, we realized that this was only one special case of a bigger theory, with new sources of interesting non-commutative algebras whose repres...
Abstract: Non-abelian Hodge theory relates representations of the fundamental group of a compact Riemann surface X into a Lie group G with holomorphic objects on X known as Higgs bundles, introduced by Hitchin more than 35 years ago. Starting with the case in which G is the circle, and the 19th century Abel-Jacobi's theory, we will move to the case of G=SL(2,R) and the relation to Teichmüller t...