Exceptional motives and exceptional local systems

Time: 14:00, August 3, 2026

Place: Room 612, Building A6

Online Zoom link:  https://zoom.us/j/99636681387?pwd=0WscBnehOJig68SqctGluVuA3RwraE.1

Abstract: In 1994, Serre asked if there exist motives whose Galois group is an exceptional algebraic group. The answer is now known to be "yes" for all simple exceptional groups, due to the work of many, many people over the last 30 years. For all simple exceptional groups G
except for E_6, more was known: there in fact exist motivic local systems with monodromy group G. I'll explain joint work with Thomas Kramer and Marco Maculan which produces motivic E_6-local systems from the classical geometry of cubic threefolds. As a byproduct, this yields a new construction of E_6-motives.