Workshop

This workshop will focus on the relations of random matrices to integrable systems and to exactly solvable statistical mechanics and topological field models. The following three groups of topics will be of primary interest: Random matrices, orthogonal polynomials, and integrable systems of differential equations of the Painlevé and KP types. The Riemann-Hilbert and Isomonodromy approachies and their relations to semiclassical analysis. The vertex operators and Virasoro algebra techniques. Correlation functions of exactly solvable quantum field and statistical mechanics models. The quantum Calogero-Sutherland and Calogero-Moser systems and the Knishnik-Zamolodchikov equation. XXX and XXZ models and the quantum Knishnik-Zamolodchikov equation. Relations to the q-special functions and to the representation theory of quantum affine algebras. Matrix integrals and topology of the moduli spaces of algebraic curves. Relations to topological field theories. Frobenius manifolds, Painlevé transcendents, and isomonodromy deformations. The indicated directions share several common analytic and algebraic features, e.g. Riemann-Hilbert problem, integrable Fredholm operators, Virasoro algebra, KP and Toda hierarchies, etc. One of the principal objectives of the workshop is to discuss extensively these remarkable similarities and hence to advance in understanding of the basic mathematical structures that lie behind them.