Model Theory of Metric Structures

September 18 to September 22, 2006

at the

American Institute of Mathematics, San Jose, California

organized by

Itaï Ben Yaacov and C. Ward Henson

Original Announcement

This workshop will focus on the use of model theoretic ideas in analysis and metric geometry, bringing together model theorists and specialists from a few key application areas for a period of intense discussions. A diverse combination of backgrounds will allow the participants to explore from new angles certain examples, applications, and theoretical problems that define the frontier of research on the model theory of metric structures.

A major goal of this workshop is to overcome communication barriers between model theorists and analysts. We will use continuous logic as a common ground for collaboration. This recently developed logic combines familiar semantic constructs from analysis with the syntactic framework of first order logic.

A new phenomenon, which does not exist in ordinary model theory, is that metric structures can be naturally perturbed. Experience shows that restating questions "up to perturbation" may be essential for a smooth general theory to be developed.

Principal topics on which the workshop will focus are:

Material from the workshop

A list of participants.

The workshop schedule.

A report on the workshop activities.

Slides from talks

Introductory lectures by Ben-Yaacov and Henson. (plain version)

Hilbert spaces and their generic automorphisms by Berenstein.

A hastily prepared introduction to perturbations by Ben-Yaacov. (plain version)

Reports from working groups

Asymptotic cones

Banach spaces without stability

Stable groups

Non-commutative probabilities and von Neumann algebras