small fleur de lis MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

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Ping Wong Ng
Assistant Professor


Contact:
Office: 404 Maxim Doucet
Phone: 337-482-5272
E-mail: png@louisiana.edu
Home page: not available


Degrees:
Ph.D.: 2000, University of California at Los Angeles
M.S.: 1997, University of California at Los Angeles
B.S. 1995 Simon Fraser University


Statement:
Well, to me, mathematics is a creative endeavour and I'm (like everybody else!) generally interested in just about anything. (So if you have an interesting (and doable) research problem, please do knock on my door!) However, since you insist(!) here are three recent things:

(1) C*-algebras, K-theory, representation theory. This is a subject which I have (for the past long while) focussed a great deal of attention on. Much of my attention has been arrested by the Elliott program for classifying simple nuclear C*-algebras using K-theory invariants. For the past 5 years, I have spent a great deal of time working on several hard problems in the real rank zero case. In addition, much of my other work in absorbing extensions is also directed towards a better understanding of structure and classification.

(2) ``Big" topological groups. I have in the past couple of years developed an interest in abstract harmonic analysis on ``big" (i.e., nonlocally compact) topological groups. My work here is greatly motivated by that of Bekka, Giordano and Pestov (I collaborate with the latter two). Some examples of properties that I study are amenability, property T and structure (e.g. simplicity).

Nonlocally compact groups often exhibit interesting phenomenon that is not present in the locally compact case. For instance, no locally compact group can have the property of extreme amenability (a type of ``superamenability"). But there are many nonlocally compact groups coming from operator algebras that have this property.

(3) Frame theory. I very recently went to a conference in Texas A & M and developed an interest in frame theory. Frame theory is a branch of functional analysis connected with signal processing. (Roughly speaking, a frame is a generalization of an orthonormal basis (for a Hilbert space) but redundancy is allowed.) I am currently working on a project (jointly with some people at the University of Cincinnati) concerning C*-algebra theory (pure mathematics) problems motivated by results by Larson et al on the existence of frames satisfying certain conditions. This is an interesting field which (though with origins in applied mathematics) exhibit much interesting pure mathematics (though the applied math is also interesting!).


Selected research publications:


Last updated 20 November 2007.
comments: mathweb@louisiana.edu


© Copyright 2007 by The University of Louisiana at Lafayette All rights reserved
Mathematics Department • University of Louisiana at Lafayette • 217 Maxim Doucet Hall • P.O. Box 41010 • Lafayette, LA 70504-1010 USA
337-482-6702 • math@louisiana.edu