Babytop Seminar

Current Session Past Sessions

Fall 2025: Trace Methods I

Organizers: Matthew Niemiro and Logan Hyslop

This semester, Babytop will focus on trace methods in the classical setting, as well as their applications to algebraic geometry, topology, and representation theory.

We meet at 4:15pm on Tuesdays in Harvard SC 309 (unless otherwise noted).

Click here to add the seminar to your Google calendar.

Sep 9 2025
Introduction to trace methods
Logan Hyslop (Harvard)
We will introduce the scope of the seminar, review the syllabus, and canvas speakers.
Sep 16 2025
An introduction to Hochschild homology
Ari Krishna (Harvard)
We introduce Hochschild homology, which may be motivated as follows: given an associative algebra A and an A-bimodule M, we may ask for a universal A-bimodule from M for which the left and right actions agree. We will discuss how to compute it, talk about the bar resolution, and make explicit the relationship to the derived world via Tor. Lastly, we will discuss the HKR isomorphism relating Hochschild homology of smooth algebras to algebras of differential forms.
Sep 23 2025
HKR and derived categories
Tyler Lane (Harvard)
We introduce some derived algebraic geometry and use it to prove a stronger version of the HKR isomorphism due to Ben-Zvi and Nadler.
Sep 30 2025
Cyclic homology
Oakley Edens (Harvard)
In this talk, we will continue the discussion of the last two talks by defining a new homology theory called cyclic homology which we construct from Hochschild homology by taking group homology with respect to the various cyclic group actions on the cyclic bar complex. We give some intuition for this construction as "taking homotopy orbits for the S^1-action on Hochschild homology", something that will be elaborated on in future talks. We then discuss the Connes periodicity sequences for cyclic homology, the comparison with de Rham cohomology and the λ-decomposition on cyclic homology.
Oct 7 2025
Application: Lie algebra homology
Jonathan Buchanan (MIT)
In this talk, we will discuss the Loday--Quillen--Tsygan theorem, which gives an isomorphism between the Lie algebra homology of the Lie algebra of matrices in some k-algebra A to the cyclic homology of A. We explain how to lift the trace map from gl(A) to A to a map of cyclic homologies and use this to construct the isomorphism.
Oct 14 2025
Circle Actions I
Matthew Niemiro (Harvard)
Nor’easters usually occur when tropical Gulf Stream currents come up and off the Atlantic and meet colder arctic air masses coming down from Canada. In more ways than one, a nor’easter is here—in this talk, I will explain the less evident vortex of frigid algebra and humid topology that underscores the meteorological event which threatened my flight here and my bike ride to the gym. To be precise, I will present some models for our current algebraic formulations of Hochschild-type invariants and dwell upon the presence of S^1-actions in these models. This will offer alternative, new, and perhaps even interesting formulations of certain properties of our invariants that will be important moving forward. Time permitting, we may say something about consequences for the homology of group algebras.
Oct 21 2025
Circle Actions II
Samuel Munoz (MIT)
Last time, we discussed three different ways to model the S^1-action on Hochschild homology, which lead to a better description of cyclic homologies. In this talk, I will use some of these models to explore several examples, including the cyclic homology of a cyclic space. As a consequence, we will see an interesting relationship between cyclic homology and S^1-equivariant homology of free loop spaces.
Oct 28 2025
Algebraic K-theory I
Tyler Lane (Harvard)
We discuss the K_0, K_1, and K_2 of rings. Then we define higher algebraic K-theory via the plus construction.
Nov 14 2025
Algebraic K-theory II
Tyler Lane (Harvard)
TBA
Nov 21 2025
TBA
Dhilan Lahoti (Harvard)
TBA
Nov 4 2025
Operator Theory Origins
Natalie Stewart (Harvard)
TBA