Another award for research at the Department of Mathematics
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has decided to continue funding the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre "Symbolic Tools in Mathematics and their Application" (SFB/TRR 195), which was established in January 2017, for another four years. With the approval, 8.9 million euros will come to the participating universities.
Within the framework of the SFB/TRR 195, researchers from the Algebra, Geometry and Computer Algebra group, together with working groups at Saarland University, RWTH Aachen University and further partners at TU Berlin, TU Darmstadt and the Universities of Siegen, Stuttgart, and Tübingen, to develop the interdisciplinary open-source computer algebra system OSCAR , which brings together algorithms from five initially independent research areas - group and representation theory, algebraic geometry, commutative and non-commutative algebra, tropical and polyhedral geometry and number theory. This open source system, which is unique in its type and versatility worldwide, utilises existing synergies between the fields and thus enables an interdisciplinary approach. The resulting tools are then used in a whole series of projects within the SFB/TRR 195 to solve deep problems in pure mathematics. The interdisciplinary research is coordinated at the Department of Mathematics at RPTU.
Professor Gunter Malle, spokesperson of the SFB/TRR 195, explains: "In the first two phases of the SFB/TRR 195, we have succeeded in developing and publishing a powerful, stable version of OSCAR. This achievement will now allow us to effectively tackle the remaining open mathematical problems in the third phase. Another goal is to consolidate the OSCAR system to ensure its continued existence as an open-source research tool beyond the research project."
Confirmation of what has been achieved so far comes from the scientific community: "There are already thousands of projects worldwide that are based on our work," says Malle. "Online servers associated with the programme enable us to exchange information directly within the scientific community."
The designated co-spokesperson, Professor Ulrich Thiel, adds: "I am particularly pleased that we are all pulling together so successfully across six locations in the Collaborative Research Centre. We have grown into a really good team." And he points out how mathematical research work often has a practical effect in retrospect: "When we send messages on the internet, algebraic algorithms ensure that they cannot be read without authorisation or falsified without being noticed."
"We outlined a total of 21 individual projects in our proposal for the third and final funding period - all of which were approved by the DFG. This is an extraordinary success for us and confirmation that we are still on the right track and that our research has great potential in the eyes of the reviewers," adds Dr. Michael Kunte, Managing Director of the SFB/TRR 195.
A total of 23 project leaders and their teams are involved in the SFB/TRR 195, including around 65 doctoral students, postdocs and other members. The work in Kaiserslautern in the context of the Collaborative Research Centre is embedded in the SymbTools potential area, which is funded under the spokesmanship of Professor Claus Fieker as part of the Rhineland-Palatinate state research initiative.