Asger Törnquist

Assistant Professor

This page is still very much under construction!

Research Interests

Descriptive set theory, group actions and orbit equivalence relations, applications of descriptive set theory to operator algebras and ergodic theory (in particular to classification problems in these areas.)

My research is supported by a DFF-Starting grant ("Sapere Aude level 2") from the Danish Council for Independent Research.

My papers on the arXiv

Papers and projects currently in progress

  1. The \Sigma-1-2 counterparts to statements that are equivalent to the continuum hypothesis (with William Weiss, U. of Toronto)

  2. The Poulsen simplex as a Fraisse limit (with Clinton Conley, Cornell)

  3. The smallest size of a maximal cofinitary group can consistently be \aleph_\omega (with Vera Fischer, U. of Vienna)

Teaching

I will teach a course in logic in the spring term (block 4) in 2012. The course is intended for 3rd and 4th year students (i.e., 3rd year bachelor students and 1st year master's students.) The goal of the course will be to prove Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and, if time allows, the Paris-Harrington theorem. Course homepage

Bachelor projects and master's theses

If you are interested in writing a project or thesis on a subject within my general area of interest/competence, you are welcome to contact me (by email, say.) Generally, I can take care of topics in logic (including set theory, descriptive set theory, recursion theory and model theory), and ergodic theory and operator algebras (though for operator algebras there may very well be other people around the Institute who are more natural choices.)

Future movements (2012)

  1. 15-20 May I will be in the Faroe Islands for the NordForsk conference.

  2. 4-8 June I will be at the University of North Texas for the conference in honor of Dan Mauldin, where I will give a tutorial about descriptive set theory and connections to ergodic theory.

  3. 18-23 June I will be at the Banff Research Station in Alberta for the set theory and operator algebras meeting.

Past movements (since October 2011)

  • On March 3, 2012, I gave the Appalachian Set Theory lectures, which consisted of an introduction to von Neumann algebras aimed at set theorists. The notes from the lectures will be posted soon.

  • I spent all of February, 2012, at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

  • 23-27 January, 2012, I was participating in the Set theory and operator algebras meeting at AIM in Palo Alto.

  • January 5-7, 2012, I was visiting the Kurt Goedel Research Center in Vienna.

  • December 8-15, 2011 I was in Toronto and spoke at the Canadian Mathematical Society meeting.

  • December 4-7, 2011, I was at Lysebu, Norway, for the Danish-Norwegian operator algebras symposium.

  • October 23-31 I was at Cornell and gave a colloquium talk at the Oliver Club. I also held a Logic Seminar.

  • October 20-23 I was at Rutgers for the MAMLS meeting. The meeting was held in honour Greg Hjorth, who unexpectedly and tragically passed away in January 2011. I gave a talk about my work with Greg Hjorth on unitary representations.

  • On October 15 I attended Boban Velickovic's Appalachian Set Theory Lectures at UIC in Chicago.

Heidegger

Dear Doktor Professor Heidegger, I should like to know what you mean by the expression "the fall into the quotidian." When did this fall occur? Where were we standing when it happened?

(from Saul Bellow's novel "Herzog".)