Professor Alexander Voronov will speak on "Motives and Quantum Cohomology"

Quantum Cohomology endows each (classical) motive of a smooth projective variety withy a highly complicated and rich structure: that of an algebra over the modular operad of motives of moduli spaces (of stable pointed curves). The talk will be dedicated to a discussion of various issues raised by this construction: problems of functoriality; reduction to genus zero; semisimplity of Quantum Cohomology in genus zero; Quantum Cohomology of moduli spaces themselves. We will discuss the question when an abstract motive is the motive of an algebraic variety.

(This talk and abstract are based on work of Manin.)