Exponential motives and exponential periods (joint work with Javier Fresán)..

What motives are to varieties, exponential motives are to varieties endowed with a potential, that is, to pairs (X,f) consisting of an algebraic variety X and a regular function f on X. Our primary motivation for studying exponential motives is that they provide a framework for a Galois theory for special values of the gamma function, of Bessel functions and for other interesting numbers which are not expected to be periods in the usual sense of algebraic geometry. In my talk, I aim to explain how to construct, following ideas of Kontsevich and Nori, a Q-linear neutral tannakian category of exponential motives over a subfield of the complex numbers, and how to calculate periods and Galois groups of a few particular exponential motives.