Geometry and large N asymptotics in Laughlin states

Laughlin states are N-particle wave functions, which successfully describe fractional quantum Hall effect (QHE) for plateaux with simple fractions. It was understood early on, that much can be learned about QHE when Laughlin states are considered on a Riemann surface. I will define the Laughlin states on a compact oriented Riemann surface of arbitrary genus and talk about recent progress in understanding their geometric properties and relation to physics. Mathematically, it is interesting to know how do Laughlin states depend on an arbitrary Riemannian metric, magnetic potential function, complex structure moduli, singularities -- for a large number of particles N. I will review the results, conjectures and further questions in this area, and relation to topics such as Coulomb gases/beta-ensembles, Bergman kernels for holomorphic line bundles, Quillen metric, zeta determinants.