In the recent years, the nature of the generating series of walks in the quarter plane has attracted the attention of many authors in combinatorics and probability. The main questions are: are they algebraic, holonomic (solutions of linear differential equations) or at least hyperalgebraic (solutions of algebraic differential equations)? In this talk, we will show how the nature of the generating function can be approached via the study of a discrete functional equation over a curve E, of genus zero or one. In the first case, the functional equation corresponds to a so called q-difference equation and all the related generating series are differentially transcendental. For the genus one case, the dynamic of the functional equation corresponds to the addition by a given point P of the elliptic curve E. In that situation, one can relate the nature of the generating series to the fact that the point P is of torsion or not.[-]

Recently several papers appears on ArXiv, on various topics apparently unrelated such as: spin system observable (T. Helmuth, A. Shapira), Fibonacci polynomials (A. Garsia, G. Ganzberger), fully commutative elements in Coxeter groups (E. Bagno, R. Biagioli, F. Jouhet, Y. Roichman), reciprocity theorem for bounded Dyck paths (J. Cigler, C. Krattenthaler), uniform random spanning tree in graphs (L. Fredes, J.-F. Marckert). In each of these papers the theory of heaps of pieces plays a central role. We propose a walk relating these topics, starting from the well-known loop erased random walk model (LERW), going around the classical bijection between lattice paths and heaps of cycles, and a second less known bijection due to T. Helmuth between lattice paths and heaps of oriented loops, in relation with the Ising model in physics, totally non-backtracking paths and zeta function in graphs. Dyck paths, these two bijections involve heaps of dimers and heaps of segments. A duality between these two kinds of heaps appears in some of the above papers, in relation with orthogonal polynomials and fully commutative elements. If time allows we will finish this excursion with the correspondence between heaps of segments, staircase polygons and q-Bessel functions.[-]

L'énumération des chemins du quadrant formés de petits pas (c'est-à-dire de pas aux 8 plus proches voisins) est maintenant bien comprise. En particulier, leur série génératrice est différentiellement finie (solution d'une ED linéaire à coefficients polynomiaux) si et seulement si un certain groupe de transformations rationnelles, associé à l'ensemble des pas autorisés (encore appelé modèle), est fini. Il n'est pas du tout évident d'étendre à des marches à pas plus grands les méthodes qui ont permis cette classification. Guy Fayolle et Kilian Raschel ont décrit les difficultés qu'il faut attendre si on essaie de généraliser l'approche par analyse complexe (laquelle est très puissante dans le cas de petits pas). Dans cet exposé, j'expliquerai comment étendre à des pas quelconques l'approche algébrique la plus simple, qui repose seulement sur des séries formelles. Elle ne s'applique qu'aux modèles à groupe fini, et encore, pas à tous : pour les chemins à petits pas, elle résout 19 des 23 modèles concernés, laissant de côté les 4 modèles algébriques. Mais elle est tout de même assez robuste : on verra par exemple que, pour des modèles à pas dans {-2,-1,0,1}$^2$ elle résout 231 des 240 modèles à groupe fini, mettant ainsi en lumière 9 modèles particulièrement intéressants.
Travail en commun avec Alin Bostan et Steve Melczer.[-]

Excursions are walks which start and end at prescribed locations. In this talk we consider the counting sequences of excursions, more precisely, the functional equations their generating functions satisfy. We focus on two sources of excursion problems: walks defined by their allowable steps, taken on integer lattices restricted to cones; and walks on Cayley graphs with a given set of generators. The latter is related to the cogrowth problems of groups. In both cases we are interested in relating the nature of the generating function (i.e. rational, algebraic, D-finite, etc.) and combinatorial properties of the models. We are also interested in the relation between the excursions, and less restricted families of walks.
Please note: A few corrections were made to the PDF file of this talk, the new version is available at the bottom of the page.[-]

In this talk, I will present recent results, obtained in collaboration with Laurent Ménard, about the geometry of spin clusters in Ising-decorated triangulations, and build on previously work obtained in collaboration with Laurent Ménard and Gilles Schaeffer.
In this model, triangulations are sampled together with a spin configuration on their vertices, with a probability biased by their number of monochromatic edges, via a parameter nu. The fact that there exists a combinatorial critical value for this model has been initially established in the physics literature by Kazakov and was rederived by combinatorial methods by Bousquet-Mélou and Schaeffer, and Bouttier, Di Francesco and Guitter.
Here, we give geometric evidence of that this model undergoes a phase transition by studying the volume and perimeter of its monochromatic clusters. In particular, we establish that, when nu is critical or subcritical, the cluster of the root is finite almost surely, and is infinite with positive probability for nu supercritical.[-]

In this talk I will provide a brief and gentle introduction to Witten's conjecture, which predicts that the generating series of certain intersection numbers on the moduli space of curves is a tau function of the KdV integrable hierarchy, as a motivation for r-spin Witten's conjecture that concerns much more complicated geometric objects and specialises to the original conjecture for r=2. The r=2 conjecture was proved for the first time by Kontsevich making use of maps arising from a cubic hermitian matrix model with an external field. Together with R. Belliard, S. Charbonnier and B. Eynard, we studied the combinatorial model that generalises Kontsevich maps to higher r. Making use of some auxiliary models we manage to find a Tutte-like recursion for these maps and to massage it into a topological recursion. We also show a relation between a particular case of our maps and the r-spin intersection numbers, which allows us to prove that these satisfy topological recursion. Finally, I will explain how, in joint work with G. Borot and S. Charbonnier, we relate another specialisation of our models to fully simple maps, and how this identification helps us prove that fully simple maps satisfy topological recursion for the spectral curve in which one exchanges x and y from the spectral curve for ordinary maps. This solved a conjecture from G. Borot and myself from '17.[-]

Several operations of combinatorial surgery can be used to relate maps of a given genus g to maps of genus g' is smaller than g. One of them is the Tutte/Lehman-Walsh decomposition, but more advanced constructions exist in the combinatorial toolbox, based on the Marcus-Schaeffer/ Miermont or the trisection bijections.
At the asymptotic level, these constructions lead to surprising relations between the enumeration of maps of genus g, and the genus 0 Brownian map. I will talk about some fascinating identities and (open) problems resulting from these connections, related to Voronoi diagrams, 'W-functionals', and properties of the ISE measure. Although the motivation comes from 'higher genus', these questions deal with the usual Brownian map as everyone likes it.
This is not very new material, and a (mostly French) part of the audience may have heard these stories one million times. But still I hope it will be interesting to advertise them here. In particular, I do not know if recent 'Liouville-based' approaches have anything to say about all this.[-]

Integrals on the space U(N) of unitary matrices have a large N expansion whose coefficients count factorisations of permutations into "monotone" sequences of transpositions. We will show how this classical story can be adapted to integrals on the complex Grassmannian Gr(M,N), which leads to a 1-parameter deformation of the aforementioned enumeration. The resulting polynomials obey remarkable properties, some known and some conjectural. The notion of topological recursion inspired this work and we will briefly attempt to explain how and why. (This is joint work with Xavier Coulter and Ellena Moskovsky.)[-]

Starting from a presentation of the many recent applications of Galois theory of functional equations to enumerative combinatorics, we will introduce the Galois theory of (different kinds) of difference equations. We will focus on the point of view of the applications, hence with little emphasis on the technicalities of the domain, but I'm willing to do an hour of « exercises » (i.e. to go a little deeper into the proofs), if a part of the audience is interested.[-]