Tuesday, August 7, 2012
3:00 pm
213 Annenberg
Special Seminar in Applied Mathematics
Intrinsic Volumes of Convex Cones -- Part 2 of 3
While intrinsic volumes of convex bodies (compact convex sets in euclidean
space) are long-studied quantities with a rich and well-established theory, the
study of intrinsic volumes of spherical convex bodies, or equivalently closed
convex cones, is still in its infancy with many fascinating open questions. On
the other hand, it has already shown that this theory may be a powerful tool
for answering certain questions arising for example in the domain of convex
programming.
The goal of this lecture series is to provide an access to this theory, to present
some recent successful applications, and to highlight the most prominent open
questions.
<br><br>
<b>Part 2: What is the probability that the solution of a random semidefinite program
has rank <i>r</i>? </b>
<br><br>
The second lecture is devoted to the intrinsic volumes of symmetric cones,
which include the cone of (real symmetric) positive semidefinite matrices. We
present closed formulas for these intrinsic volumes and use them to provide an
answer to the question in the title of this talk (which has been asked already
15 years ago). This answer is achieved by a neat application of the kinematic
formulas, which we will discuss in greater depth.
Contact Sydney Garstang sydney@caltech.edu at x4555
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