- Scholarship in 2023 at Yale University
About Zhiyuan Bai’s work
Zhiyuan Bai is a mathematician whose current research is focused on moduli spaces in geometry and number theory.
Moduli spaces are mathematical constructions that are used to study families of geometric objects. They are important in both geometry and number theory. In recent years, there has been a lot of research that uses moduli spaces to study enumerative geometry, which is the study of counting certain types of geometric shapes. There are still many open problems in enumerative geometry such as the relationship between different counting theories on Calabi-Yau threefolds. Researchers are making progress as they learn more about the associated moduli spaces.
Moduli spaces are also important in number theory. One such example is the study of Shimura varieties, which can be viewed as moduli spaces of abelian varieties. Studying Shimura varieties has led to results that furthered our understanding of abelian varieties, the theories around which have greatly influenced the development of number theory in recent decades.
Bai’s research aims to solve some of the problems and fill gaps in knowledge in the fast-developing fields of enumerative geometry and number theory.
Biography
Zhiyuan Bai was awarded first-class honours in his undergraduate degree in mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 2022, after which he pursued a MMath at the same institution and graduated with distinction. He is now conducting his research at Yale. While at Cambridge, Bai was the recipient of the Fitzwilliam College Chinese Undergraduate Scholarship, the RA Watchman Prize, the Clough Scholarship and the Stumbles Prize.