The conference ‘Total Positivity: a bridge between Representation Theory and Physics’ held at the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science 7-12 January, brought together over 50 researchers from diverse areas, such as algebra, integrable systems and mathematical physics. They came from the USA, France, Germany and across the UK.

Professor Nima Arkani-Hamed (Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton) and Professor Lauren Williams (Berkeley), each delivered a lecture series. Professor Arkani-Hamed is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists and was the inaugural winner of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He presented his work on the interactions between Total Positivity, a phenomenon that arises in diverse areas of pure mathematics, and scattering amplitudes in physics. Professor Williams is a highly influential pure mathematician who has been awarded the 2016 AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory. She spoke about her research connecting Total Positivity with Integrable Systems. A further nine invited speakers, from France, Germany and the UK, showed how their work touched upon Total Positivity.

This interdisciplinary workshop was organised by Stephane Launois and Rowena Paget (SMSAS) with the generous support of the Anglo-Franco-German Representation Theory Network. Full details can be found at https://www.kent.ac.uk/smsas/personal/sl261/Conference/Canterbury2016/TPatKent.html