Title of the talk: "Learning Quantum Topology"

Date , Time & Venue : 19 August 2025 at 12 PM on Seminar Hall, Dept. of Mathematics

Abstract:  Quantum Topology refers to interactions between problems in the topology of low dimensional manifolds and ideas and methods from quantum physics. Knot theory has been a particularly fruitful avenue for such interactions, and for further interactions with computational techniques. Beginning with a gentle introduction to knots, I will present results from numerical and machine learning (ML) experiments on a large dataset of knot invariants that we generated. Our results include highly accurate predictions of geometric properties from simple quantum polynomials. I will also demonstrate utility of our ML techniques in number theory. I will end with future directions in this and other areas of my research.

About the Speaker: Dr. Pratik Roy is a Freestanding postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, as Principal Investigator on the grant “New Inequalities for Quantum Entropy”. His primary interests are Machine Learning applications to Quantum Topology and Mathematical Physics, and Quantum Information Theory. He also works on problems in the theory of special functions, especially generalizations of hypergeometric series. Before going to Johannesburg, he was an Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at IIT Madras, where he worked on Quantum Thermodynamics. He obtained his PhD in Theoretical Physics from Chennai Mathematical Institute.