Geometry of topological quantum field theories (TQFT)  
Organised by Katrin Wendland and Emanuel Scheidegger (Augsburg), Donagi,
Hertling, Hitchin and Reid

for details, see
http://www.math.uni-augsburg.de/geo/wendland/Warwick_TQFT/Warwick_TQFT.html

Ideas from quantum field theory and string theory have had an enormous
impact on geometry over the last 20 years; the most obvious links for
algebraic geometers relate to mirror symmetry, Gromov--Witten invariants
and the McKay correspondence. The topics we want to focus on during
WAG07-08 go back to papers of Cecotti and Vafa and their coauthors
around 1991. These papers introduced a whole series of ideas originating
in QFT, that have proved to be basic new ingredients in mathematics. The
spectrum of ideas we will explore range from the physics of string
theory, topological (and anti-topological!) QFT, the formalism of tt$^*$
equations and their classical limits, to mathematical rigorous notions
such as Dubrovin's Frobenius structures on manifolds and Hertling's TERP
structures. A modest down-to-earth view of this is as an enrichment of
Hodge structures (and their variations) to include data from the
symplectic side of mirror symmetry; as well as many predictions in the
realm of enumerative geometry, this gives concrete results in
applications to singularity theory and algebraic geometry, and relates
directly to problems in geometry such as moduli of flat structures on
bundles and integrable systems.

Timing: We plan a small scale meeting as a warm-up for this activity at
Augsburg in May 2007; see
  http://www.math.uni-augsburg.de/geo/konf/ttstar.html
(funding to be clarified; possibly via an NSF "Focused Research" Grant
of the UPenn Math/Physics group).

The Warwick activity will occupy two months from mid-Feb 2008 (the
Augsburg winter break), with a workshop 31st Mar--5th Apr 2008. There
will be follow-up activity on this topic over the following years, in
the UK and at Augsburg.

Participants. Confirmed: Bridgeland, Donagi, Hertling, Hitchin, Katrin
Leschke (Augsburg), Szendroi, Varchenko, Wendland

Targetted: Aganagic, Bowcock, Braden, Bruzzo, Cavalcanti, Cortes,
Costello, de Gregorio, Diaconescu, Dorey, Doyon, Evans,
Figueroa-O'Farrill, Gross, Gualtieri, Hannabuss, He, Hull, Huybrechts,
Klemm, Kontsevich, Lazarev, Lazaroiu, Lerche, Marino, Mayr, Mazzocco,
Igor Mencattini (Augsburg), Mond, Neitzke, Pantev, Pioline, Rawnsley,
Recknagel, Rozansky, Runkel, Sabbah, Sachs, SAITO Kyoji, Segal,
Sevenheck, Shatashvili, Shramchenko, Stieberger, Strachan, Szendroi,
Taormina, Thomas, Nikolai Tyurin, Vafa, Walcher, Waldram, West,
Willerton,