Intercity Seminar Algebraic Geometry 2008/9




The topic of the Intercity seminar Autumn 2008 is the proof by Ngô, Bao Châu of the fundamental lemma. The fundamental lemma is a conjecture about 'orbital integrals' --in essence of combinatorial nature-- and has its origins in the Langlands program where one tries to compare automorphic forms on different groups. Ngo has recently proposed a new approach to proving the fundamental lemma based on the Hitchin fibration. Ngô and Laumon have used this to prove the fundamental lemma for unitary groups and very recently Ngo has put a manuscript on math arXiv with a proof of the fundamental lemma in the general case. One of the attractive features of this approach is the role that geometry (the Hitchin fibration) plays in this proof.

Program