Prof. Dr. Petra Schwer
building 03, room 206a
Tel. +49 391 67 52576
Fax. +49 391 67 41213
petra.schwer@ovgu.de
Petra Schwer

Prof. Dr. Petra Schwer
Geometry Group
Petra Schwer is professor for geometry here in Magdeburg.
Since 2016 she is a member of the priority programme SPP 2026 Geometry at infinity.
Pi ist genau 3 Maths Podcast by Petra Schwer and Thomas Kahle (in German)
How to read a mathematical text?
For my first year students I wrote a guideline (in German) on how to read mathematical texts, such as text books, lecture notes, etc..
Feel free to share it!
- Extended intro on how to read Math (in German)
- Cheat Sheat on how to read Math (in German)
Preprints:
- Stefanie Rach-Ufer, Silke Neuhaus-Eckart, Petra Schwer: Lesen mathematischer Texte und Entwickeln von Freude an Mathematik: Einblicke in ein Flipped-Classroom-Konzept in der Studieneingangsphase.
- Elizabeth Milićević, Petra Schwer, Anne Thomas: Affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties and folded galleries governed by chimneys. arXiv:2111.13761 [math.GR] (2021).
- Elizabeth Milićević, Yusra Naqvi, Petra Schwer, Anne Thomas: A gallery model for affine flag varieties via chimney retractions. arXiv:1912.09911 [math.RT] (2019).
Reviewed articles:
- Marius and Petra Schwer: Shadows in Coxeter groups. arXiv:1807.08605, Annals of Combinatorics (2020).
- Annette Karrer, Petra Schwer and Koen Struyve: : The triangle groups (2,4,4), (2,4,5) and (2,5,5) are not systolic. arXiv:1812.08567, Graphs and combinatorics (2020).
- Petra Schwer and David Weniger: A structure theorem for generalized affine buildings. arXiv:1801.10394 math.MG, Journal of Geometry (2019).
- Elizabeth Milićević, Petra Schwer und Anne Thomas: Dimensions of affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties: a new approach via labeled folded alcove walks and root operators. arxiv.org/abs/1504.07076, Memoirs of the AMS (2019).
- Joel Brewster Lewis, Jon McCammond, T. Kyle Petersen, Petra Schwer: Computing reflection length in an affine Coxeter group. Transactions of the AMS, (2018).
- Julia Heller und Petra Schwer: Generalized non-crossing Partitions and Buildings. Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (2018).
- Petra Schwer: Folding operators, root groups and retractions. Jornal of Combinatorial Algebra (2018).
- Thomas Haettel, Dawid Kielak and Petra Schwer: The 6-strand braid group is CAT(0). arxiv.org/abs/1304.5990, Geometriae Dedicata (2016).
- Piotr Przytycki and Petra Schwer: Systolizing buildings. arxiv.org/abs/1310.5525, GGD (2015).
- Petra Schwer and Koen Struyve: Epimorphisms of pseudo-quadratic polar spaces. arxiv.org/abs/1210.8356, Journal of Algebra (2015).
- Curt Bennett, Petra Schwer and Koen Struyve: On axiomatic definitions of non-discrete affine buildings. Advances in Geometry (2014).
- Petra Schwer and Koen Struyve: $\Lambda$-buildings and base change functors. DOI: 10.1007/s10711-011-9611-2, Geometriae Dedicata (2011).
- Petra Hitzelberger: Non-discrete affine buildings and Convexity. Advances in Mathematics, vol.227 (2011) 210 - 244
- Petra Hitzelberger, Linus Kramer and Richard Weiss: Non-discrete Euclidean Buildings for the Ree and Suzuki groups. American Journal of Mathematics, vol. 132, no. 4 (2010) 1113-1152
- Petra Hitzelberger: Kostant convexity for affine buildings. Forum Mathematicum, vol. 22, no. 5 (2010) 959-971
- Petra Hitzelberger and Alexander Lytchak: Spaces with many affine functions. Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 135 (2007), 2263-2271
- Extended Abstract of: Computing reflection length in an affine Coxeter group with Joel Brewster Lewis, Jon McCammond, T. Kyle Petersen will be presented as a talk at FPSAC 2018.
Weitere Schriften
- Petra Schwer: Lecture notes on CAT(0) cube complexes. arXiv:1910.06815 [math.GR].
- Petra Hitzelberger: Generalized affine buildings: Automorphisms, affine Suzuki-Ree Buildings and Convexity. Doctoral thesis (2009).
You have possibly seen me (or will have the chance to see me) give a talk on one of the following occasions (2018-2020):
-- not up to date --
2020
Jan - Math+ Friday: Kolloquium der Berlin Mathematical School
2019
Nov. - Workshop "Buildings and applications", MPI Leipzig (D)
Okt. - EWM Meeting, Leipzig (D)
Aug - Algebra Seminar, Sydney (AU)
July - Felix-Klein Kolloquium, Leipzig (D)
May - Mathematical Kolloquium, Göttingen (D)
Feb. - Conference "Geometric Analysis meets Geometric Topology", Heidelberg (D)
Feb. - ABCD Workshop, Aachen (D)
Jan. - Algebra Seminar, Köln (D)
Jan. - Bär Kolloquium, Magdeburg (D)
Jan. - Seminar Sophus Lie, Gießen (D)
2018
Nov. - Workshop "Groups in Madrid", Madrid (ESP)
Nov. - Workshop on Algebraic Combinatorics, Berlin (D)
Okt. - Buildings 2018, Münster (D)
Sept. - Fall school in Besse (F)
May - Oberseminar Analysis JLU-Gießen (D)
April - Séminaire Algèbre ICJ, Lyon (F)
March - Conference \emph{Geometry and Representation Theory of Algebraic Groups}, Bad Honnef (D)
Jan. - Algebra Seminar, TU Kaiserslautern (D)
Theses written under my supervision
PhD
- Julia Heller (2014 - 2018, KIT)
- Annette Karrer (2016 - 2020, KIT)
- Marco Lotz (OVGU, since 2019, joint with Thomas Kahle)
- Isobel Davies (OVGU, since 01/2021)
- Anna Michael (OVGU, since 04/2021)
Master/Diplom
- Mireille Soergel (SS 2018, Heidelberg)
- Valentin Braun (WS 2017/18, KIT)
- Peter Breul (WS 2017/18, KIT)
- Holger Mühlsteph (WS 2017/18, KIT)
- Marius Graeber (SS 2017, KIT)
- David Weniger (WS 2016/17, KIT)
Bachelor
- Jonas Labonte (SS 2018, KIT)
- Lena Eid (SS 2017, KIT)
- Laura Jesser (WS 2016/17, KIT)
- Stefan Lais (SS 2015, KIT)
- Noam von Rotberg (2020, Uni Heidelberg)
- Yannick Steinkamp (2021, OVGU)
Links
You can find out more about me here:
Mathe Podcast
Pi ist genau - der Mathe Podcast aus Magdeburg
https://pi-ist-genau-3.de/
Mathematicians on the job
A series of job-talks I started at KIT: Mathematiker im Beruf (in German)
Media
- press release OVGU - inaugural lecture
- press release OVGU
- Modellansatz episode on metric geometry (in German)
- Young Investigator Network - introductory video
Some old material:
Lecture on CAT(0) groups and geometry
In the summer of 2017 I was teaching the RTG lecture of our research training group in which I explained some of the nice properties CAT(0) groups and spaces.
The other half of the lecture was shared by Karin Melnick and Beatrice Pozetti.
Here are the scans of my lecture:
First session on Basics and examples.
Second session on The Bruhat-Tits fixedpoint theorem .
Third session on Gromov's link condition and other ways to test for CAT(0).
Fourth session on CAT(0) groups and Isometries of CAT(0) spaces.
Fifth session on The visual boundary and its relatives.
Teaching in Heidelberg Winter 2017/18
During the winter term 2017/18 I am a Visiting Professor at the University of Heidelberg replacing Prof. Anna Wienhard. I gave a student seminar on buildings as well as an introduction to Geometric Group Theory.
Petra Schwer studied mathematics at the Universities in Ulm and Bonn and received her PhD in Münster under the supervision of Linus Kramer and Richard Weiss. After postdoc positions in the USA and France she worked as a commodity risk controller at RWE Power AG in Essen for 10 months.
She returned to research with DFG "Eigene Stelle" funding before she became a Junior Professor at KIT. During the winter term 2017/18 she was a visiting professor in Heidelberg, in the spring 2018 she worked in Saint Étienne (France) for a month as a prof-invitée.
Schwer became a professor for geometry at the Otto-von-Guericke University on December 1st 2018.
Weitere Infos zu den Lehrveranstaltungen finden Sie auf den entsprechenden Seiten im IAG.
- Geometrie ( Link zur LV im LSF )
- Geometrie (Ü) ( Link zur LV im LSF )
- Mathematik 2a für Ing. (Stg B) ( Link zur LV im LSF )
- Mathematik 2a für Ing. (Stg B, 6 Ü) ( Link zur LV im LSF )
- Oberseminar Algebra und Geometrie ( Link zur LV im LSF )
- Seminar CAT(0) kubische Komplexe ( Link zur LV im LSF )