Public Lecture: Dr. Ivan Shestakov

Dr. Ivan Shestakov will be visiting St. John’s, NL, from May 29 to June 3, as a guest of the Atlantic Algebra Centre in the department of Mathematics and Statistics at Memorial University and as an AARMS Distinguished Lecturer.  While there, Dr. Shestakov will give a plenary talk to the International Workshop “Groups, Rings, Lie and Hopf Algebras IV”. The title of the talk is “Non-matrix Varieties and Coordinatization Theorems”.  Dr. Shestakov will also deliver a public lecture as described below.

Tame and Wild Automorphisms of Free Algebras

The notion of automorphism captures the idea of symmetry in mathematics. More precisely, an automorphism of an object is an invertible transformation that preserves the object’s structure. Many important objects in algebra possess natural examples of such transformations, which are referred to as elementary automorphisms. For such an object, an automorphism is called tame if it can be represented as a composition of elementary automorphisms, otherwise it is called wild.

It is known that the automorphisms of polynomial algebra and of free associative algebra are tame in case of two generators while in case of three generators there exist wild automorphisms.

In our talk, we will discuss known results and open problems on tame and wild automorphisms in various classes of algebras.

Speaker Bio

Ivan Shestakov was born on August 13, 1947, in Zaval’, Irkutsk region, Russia. After graduating from the Physical-Mathematical School in Novosibirsk, he entered Novosibirsk University in 1965. There he obtained his first results in algebra, under the guidance of professors K. Zhevlakov and A. Shirshov. His Masters thesis “On a Class of Non-commutative Jordan Rings” was awarded the Medal of the Academy of Sciences of USSR for students. In 1970 Shestakov graduated from Novosibirsk University and entered as a researcher the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics. In 1973 he received his Ph.D. from Novosibirsk University, and in 1978 he earned the Doctor of Sciences from the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics for the work “Free Alternative Algebras”. In 1974 Shestakov became a professor of the Novosibirsk State University. Since 1999 he has held a position of Full Professor at the University of Sao Paulo. In 2007 he was awarded, jointly with U. Umirbaev, the E. H. Moore Research Article Prize of the AMS for the solution of the Nagata problem on polynomial automorphisms. In 2009 Shestakov was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and in 2010 he was awarded the “Ordem de Merito Scientifico” by the president of Brazil. In 2016 Shestakov was elected a Fellow of the AMS, and in 2017 he was awarded the Gold Medal “For Great Contributions to Mathematics” by the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics (Novosibirsk, Russia). Shestakov’s interests lie in the Ring Theory and Combinatorial Algebra. He has focused on the structure and representations of non-associative algebras and superalgebras, PIalgebras, free algebras and their automorphisms.

Connection Details

To attend in person:

     Room EN-2006, S. J. Carew Building
Memorial University
240 Prince Phillip Drive
St. John’s, NL

To attend virtually:

Connection details will be published at:
https://www.mun.ca/aac/