This is the webpage for a seminar series on perverse sheaves and the decomposition theorem. There is a set of preliminary notes here. WARNING: These notes were compiled by the maker of this webpage, who is clueless. The doubtlessly numerous errors are due to his ignorance and incompetence, and not the speaker's. These notes should not be used to learn the material, instead one should refer to the sources below.


Talks


13 October 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
Motivation and overview by Balázs.

20 October 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
Gauss-Manin connections and monodromy of smooth families by Jan.
Accompanying Magma code to compute Gauss-Manin connections of families of hyperelliptic curves. Instructions.

27 October 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
Intersection homology by Brent.
Notes by Brent.

3 November 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
Derived categories and perverse sheaves by Jan.

10 November 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
An introduction to D-modules and the RH correspondence by Konstantin.

17 November 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
Étale cohomology and Frobenius by Netan.
Notes by Kęstutis Česnavičius.

24 November 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
The proof of Beilinson-Bernstein-Deligne-Gabber by Przemek.

1 December 2014, 10 - 11.30am, C2
Mixed Hodge modules by Pavel.
Notes by Pavel.

Sources

The main source we intend to follow is de Cataldo, Migliorini - "The decomposition theorem, perverse sheaves and the topology of algebraic maps".
The plan is to add links to relevant sources as the seminar progresses.

The three known proofs of the decomposition theorem:
Beilinson, Bernstein, Deligne: "Faisceaux pervers" (1982).
Saito: "Modules de Hodge polarisables" (1988).
de Cataldo, Migliorini: The Hodge theory of algebraic maps (2005).

We have the advantage of not running a particularly unusual seminar, so there are many online notes from similar seminars:
Dennis The Menace
Donu Arapura
Notes from a lecture series of Migliorini by Geordie Williamson.