Wolfgang Soergel (born 12 June 1962 in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

) is a German mathematician, specializing in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

and

representation theory Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...

Biography

He spent his youth in Heidelberg, where he passed the ''

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

'' examination in 1980 at the . He studied mathematics and physics in Geneva and Bonn and received his ''Promotion'' (PhD) in 1988 from the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vor ...

. His PhD dissertation ''Universelle versus relative Einhüllende: Eine geometrische Untersuchung von Quotienten von universellen Einhüllenden halbeinfacher Lie-Algebren'' (Universal versus relative envelopes: a geometric investigation of quotients of universal envelopes of semi-simple Lie algebras) was supervised by

Jens Carsten Jantzen Jens Carsten Jantzen (born 18 October 1948, in Störtewerkerkoog, Nordfriesland) is a mathematician working on representation theory and algebraic groups, who introduced the Jantzen filtration, the Jantzen sum formula, and translation funct ...

. After postdoctoral positions at U. C. Berkeley, Harvard University, and

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, Soergel completed his ''

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

'' at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

in 1991. In 1994 he was appointed to a professorial chair at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisg ...

. He was an invited speaker at the 1994

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

in Zurich. Since 2008 he has been a full member of the

Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (German: ''Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften''), established in 1909 in Heidelberg, Germany, is an assembly of scholars and scientists in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Academ ...

. He is the author or coauthor of over 30 research articles. His research in representation theory has important applications to Kazhdan-Lusztig theory and

Koszul duality In mathematics, Koszul duality, named after the French mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul, is any of various kinds of dualities found in representation theory of Lie algebras, abstract algebras (semisimple algebra) and topology (e.g., equivariant cohom ...

. The category of Soergel bimodules is named in his honor. His doctoral students include Peter Fiebig, Catharina Stroppel and

Geordie Williamson Geordie Williamson (born 1981 in Bowral, Australia) is an Australian mathematician at the University of Sydney. He became the youngest living Fellow of the Royal Society when he was elected in 2018 at the age of 36. Education Educated at Che ...

. Wolfgang Soergel is the son of the physicist and a grandson of the paleontologist (1887–1946).

Selected publications

* ''Langlands’ Philosophy and Koszul Duality.'' In: I. Klaus W. Roggenkamp, Mirela Ștefănescu (ed.): ''Algebra – representation theory. (Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Algebra – Representation Theory, Constanta, Romania, 2–12 August 2000)'' (= ''NATO Science Series.'' Series 2: ''Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.'' 28). Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht u. a. 2001, ISBN 0-7923-7113-5, pp. 379–414. * with

Alexander Beilinson Alexander A. Beilinson (born 1957) is the David and Mary Winton Green University professor at the University of Chicago and works on mathematics. His research has spanned representation theory, algebraic geometry and mathematical physics. In 1 ...

Victor Ginzburg Victor Ginzburg (born 1957) is a Russian American mathematician who works in representation theory and in noncommutative geometry. He is known for his contributions to geometric representation theory, especially, for his works on representations ...

: ''Koszul duality patterns in representation theory.'' In: '' Journal of the American Mathematical Society.'' vol. 9, no. 2, 1996, pp. 473–527, . * ''Gradings on Representation Categories.'' In: Srishti D. Chatterji (ed.): ''Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians. August 3–11, 1994, Zürich, Switzerland.'' vol. 2. Basel etc., Birkhäuser 1995, ISBN 3-7643-5153-5, pp. 800–806. * with Henning H. Andersen, Jens C. Jantzen: ''Representations of quantum groups at a

p

-th root of unity and of semisimple groups in characteristic

p

: independence of

p

'' (= ''Astérisque.'' 220, ). Société Mathématique de France, Paris 1994. * ''Kategorie 𝓞, perverse Garben, und Moduln über den Koinvarianten zur Weylgruppe.'' In: ''Journal of the American Mathematical Society.'' vol. 3, no. 2, 1990, pp. 421–445, .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soergel, Wolfgang 20th-century German mathematicians 21st-century German mathematicians University of Hamburg alumni Academic staff of the University of Freiburg 1962 births Living people