Principal Graphs of Subfactors

The aim of the talk will be to discuss some of the known facts regarding the primary invariant of a `subfactor of finite index'. So as to not unduly tax such members of the audience who have not had the pleasure of being acquainted with subfactors, the lecture will commence with a brief discussion of operator algebras (von Neumann algebras, to be specific), the classification of modules over the so-called II_1 factors, and touch on some of the beautiful results of Jones, Ocneanu, Haagerup and Popa regarding these graph invariants. The talk will probably close with a small result of the speaker relating the two principal graphs.