Speaker:  Julian Sahasrabudhe (University of Cambridge)

Note:     Special Location MIT 2-449 (Building 2, Room 449)

 Title:   A new lower bound for sphere packing

Abstract:   What is the maximum proportion of d-dimensional space that can be covered by disjoint, identical spheres? In this talk I will discuss a new lower bound for this problem, which is the first asymptotically growing improvement to Rogers' bound from 1947. Our proof is almost entirely combinatorial and reduces to a novel theorem about independent sets in graphs with bounded degrees and codegrees.

This is based on joint work with Marcelo Campos, Matthew Jenssen and Marcus Michelen.