Professor Francis Brown

The interaction between mathematics and theoretical physics has historically been fruitful for both fields, with questions arising in physics inspiring new areas of mathematics, and ideas from pure mathematics later finding applications in physics. Francis Brown has established connections between algebraic geometry and scattering amplitudes, an area of mathematical physics concerned with the interactions of particles and fundamental forces. His work draws on ideas from algebraic geometry, number theory, algebraic topology and representation theory, and combines the solution of concrete mathematical problems with the development of mathematical theory inspired by theoretical physics. Brown's current research interests include the cohomology of arithmetic groups, such as general and symplectic groups over the integers. He is also a Principal Investigator on the ERC Synergy Grant Mathematics of Scattering Amplitudes, which develops mathematical and computational methods for studying particle interactions in quantum field theory, string theory, and classical gravity.