Arithmetic and Geometry around Hypergeometric Functions

The aim of the school is the presentation of hot topics in the field in a form accessible to research students, and revival of the interest in the field by highlighting possible new research directions. There will be minicourses on hypergeometric differential equations and related topics such as discrete groups in the automorphism groups of complex balls, ball quotients, orbifolds and corresponding moduli problems of algebraic geometry. Quotient of a ball under a discrete group action is called a ball-quotient. If the group action has some fixed points, then the corresponding ball-quotient is a complex orbifold. These orbifolds are related to some very special hyperplane arrangements in complex projective spaces. Frequently, ball quotients has an interpretation as a moduli space of algebraic surfaces. There will be a special focus on recent developments about this moduli interpretation.