Let G be a connected locally compact group with a left Haar measure μ, and let A,B ⊆ G be nonempty and compact. Assume further that G is unimodular, i.e., μ is also the right Haar measure; this holds, e.g., when G is compact, a nilpotent Lie group, or a semisimple Lie group. In 1964, Kemperman showed that μ(AB) ≥ min {μ(A)+μ(B), μ(G)} . The Kemperman inverse problem (proposed by Griesmer, Kemperman, and Tao) asks when the equality happens or nearly happens. I will discuss the recent solution of this […]

This talk describes the connection between /strong minimality/ of the differential equation satisfied by an complex analytic function and the real and imaginary parts of the function being /Pfaffian/. The talk will not assume the audience knows these notions previously, and will attempt to motivate why each of them are important notions in various areas. The connection we give, combined with a theorem of Freitag and Scanlon (2017) provides the answer to a question of Binyamini and Novikov (2017). We also answer a question of Bianconi (2016). We give what […]

Let us say that a real function f is o-minimal if the expansion (R,f) of the real field by f is o-minimal. A function g is definable from f if g is definable in (R,f). Two o-minimal functions are compatible if there exists an o-minimal expansion M of the real field in which they are both definable. I will discuss the o-minimality, the interdefinability and the compatibility of two special functions, Euler's Gamma and Riemann's Zeta, restricted to the reals. If time allows it, I will present a general technique […]

In his influential paper “Tameness in expansions of the real field” from the early 2000s, Chris Miller wrote: “ What might it mean for a first-order expansion of the field of real numbers to be tame or well behaved? In recent years, much attention has been paid by model theorists and real-analytic geometers to the o-minimal setting: expansions of the real field in which every definable set has finitely many connected components. But there are expansions of the real field that define sets with infinitely many connected components, yet are […]