Speaker: Ralph Greenberg
Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2011, 2:10pm in Sieg 230.
Title: Galois representations attached to elliptic curves
Abstract: The Galois representations referred to in the title are defined by considering the points of finite order on an elliptic curve, the fields generated by their coordinates, and the Galois groups associated to those fields. These Galois representations play an important role in studying the Mordell-Weil groups of elliptic curves, but are also an interesting object of study themselves. We will describe these representations and state a deep theorem of Serre. We will also mention some unsolved problems related to Serre's theorem.