International conference
Combinatorial Methods in Physics and Knot Theory

Jean-Bernard ZUBER (LPTHE, Paris-6 Jussieu): Matrix integrals and knot theory

Physicists have developed diagrammatic techniques, known as Feynman graphs, to deal with integrals with Gaussian weights. When applied to integrals over Hermitian matrices, this also allows to control the topology of the graphs, and to write for example generating functions of the numbers of planar objects. This will be illustrated on the counting of "alternating" links and tangles.