OpAlg seminar: Kevin Brix

Speaker: Kevin Brix (KU)

Title: Symbolic dynamics and operator algebras

Abstract: Since the late 70s, we know that there are important connections between symbolic dynamical systems (e.g., graphs of various kinds or shift spaces) and operator algebras. This talk will be divided into two parts: In the first, I will sketch some of the main results establishing this connection between the two fields with an emphasis on questions and open problems. The main characters in this story are Cuntz, Krieger, Rørdam, Matsumoto and Matui. In the second part, I will discuss the possibilities of deriving similar sounding results in the case of general shift spaces. Here, the problem is topological and our approach is the construction of a cover first introduced by Carlsen. Although this approach is explained in a specific case, the problem is quite general and, hopefully, similar solutions can be applied in a broader context!