To: alsem
Subject: This week's seminar
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DATE:     Thursday, Nov. 11
TIME:     12:10 pm in Eng E206
SPEAKER:  Jeff Achter (CSU)
TITLE:    Monodromy Groups and Hyperelliptic Curves

ABSTRACT: Monodromy groups arise both in topology and in algebraic
geometry as a way of understanding coverings of a base space.  I'll start by
reviewing this theory.

I apply this formalism, as well as a study of degenerations of
curves, to compute the mod-l monodromy of a generic family of
hyperelliptic curves.  From this I deduce arithmetic information
about such curves, especially over finite fields.