International travel support for US researchers to attend '60 Miles,' London, July 2008

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ABSTRACTThe conference 60 Miles brings together the highest caliber speakers in an unusual density and broadness. It is arguably the ultimate algebraic geometry event of 2008.Miles Reid has been one of the main original architects of the revolutionary Minimal Model Program (MMP) starting in the 1980s and continuing today. This conference celebrates his 60th birthday, but beyond that occasion, perhaps more importantly, it brings together the best of the best in higher dimensional algebraic geometry. The fact that this conference is related to the birthday of one of the leaders of the field is assurance that the list of speakers and participants is truly spectacular.The MMP was developed as a tool in the classification of algebraic varieties (geometric objects defined by algebraic equations). The theory for curves was already known to Riemann and his contemporaries and for surfaces the classical Italian school. The surface theory was completed by Kodaira in the 1960s. Due to results discovered in the 1970s, it was believed that a similar theory was not possible in dimensions higher than two. That view was altered by the work of Miles Reid and lead to groundbreaking results by Reid and Mori as well as by Kawamata, Kollar and Shokurov. For his contribution to the theory, Mori received the Fields Medal in 1990 reflecting on the importance the theory plays in algebraic geometry.The MMP was completed for 3-folds in the 1980s and most of it was developed in arbitrary dimension at that time, leaving one central problem open for a quarter of a century. Recently Hacon and McKernan achieved an extraordinary breakthrough on that open problem which created a buzz and rekindled interest in the development of the theory (interest in its applicationa never faded).The conference features 12 world famous speakers including most of the major figures in MMP, 2 Field Medalists at least 9 ICM speakers. The present grant's main purpose is to make it possible for junior researchers, including some graduate students to participate in this unique event.