Chi Ho Yuen: The Combinatorics of Break Divisors

The notion of break divisor was introduced by Mikhalkin and Zharkov in their study of tropical Jacobians. Break divisors and several relevant objects, notably the ABKS decomposition of the tropical Jacobian, have many connections with classical topics in combinatorics. In this talk, I will give the constructions of these objects, and explain how they are related to the matrix-tree theorem, zonotopal tilings, and topological graph theory. If time permits, I will also discuss some applications in tropical geometry and extension to oriented matroids. Part of the talk is joint work with Spencer Backman and Matthew Baker.