GVA Colloquium on Algebraic Geometry


Febraury 2nd 2006,
Department of Mathematics, University of Bologna

Rational curves and resolutions of singularities
Tom Graber
(University of California at Berkeley)

I will discuss some of the progress that has been made in generalizing the remarkable correspondence discovered by McKay between finite subgroups of SL(2,C) and simply laced Dynkin diagrams. The emphasis will be on motivating a conjecture arising from string theory that relates certain invariants of algebraic varieties with finite quotient singularities to analogous invariants on a resolution of singularities.