Workshop

Our Introductory Workshop will focus largely on the background, recent work, and current problems regarding: Selmer groups and Mordell-Weil groups, and the distribution of their ranks (and "sizes") over families of elliptic curves, including recent work of Manjul Bhargava and Arul Shankar where they have shown that the average size of the (2)-Selmer group of an elliptic curve over (mathbb{Q}) is (3), and thereby obtains information about the average rank of Mordell-Weil groups. Related work on the asymptotics of number fields. Certain natural families of (L)-functions, and the statistical distribution of their zeros and values. Complementary algorithmic methods and experimental results regarding (L)-functions, automorphic forms, elliptic curves and number fields. The statistical behavior of eigenvalues of Frobenius elements in Galois representations, and of related trigonometric sums.   Bibliography (PDF)   Accommodations A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hotel Durant. Please mention MSRI and the workshop name when making reservations via phone, fax or e-mail. If you are making your reservations on line, please go to Hotel Durant website, choose your dates of stay and enter the "1101MSRIIN" promo code in the box. The cut-off date for reservations is December 30, 2010. The rate is $110 per night plus tax. A block of rooms has been reserved at the Rose Garden Inn. Reservations may be made by calling 1-800-992-9005 OR directly on their website. Click on Corporate at the bottom of the screen and when prompted enter code MATH (this code is not case sensitive). By using this code a new calendar will appear and will show MSRI rate on all room types available. The cut-off date for reservations is January 13, 2011. New, completely renovated Hotel Shattuck Plaza has rooms available for you! MSRI’s preferred rate is $131. Guests can either call the hotel’s main line, 510-845-7300, and ask for the MSRI rate or go to http://www.hotelshattuckplaza.com, click on "Corporate Rates" in the reservation screen and type the code msri10.