- Series
- Geometry Topology Seminar
- Time
- Monday, November 11, 2024 - 2:00pm for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
- Location
- Skiles 006
- Speaker
- Max Riestenberg – Max Plank Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences – max.riestenberg@mis.mpg.de – https://sites.google.com/view/max-riestenberg/home
- Organizer
- Alex Nolte
In 1992 Hitchin discovered distinguished components of the PSL(d,R) character variety for closed surface groups pi_1S and asked for an interpretation of those components in terms of geometric structures. Soon after, Choi-Goldman identified the SL(3,R)-Hitchin component with the space of convex projective structures on S. In 2008, Guichard-Wienhard identified the PSL(4,R)-Hitchin component with foliated projective structures on the unit tangent bundle T^1S. The case d \ge 5 remains open, and compels one to move beyond projective geometry to flag geometry. In joint work with Alex Nolte, we obtain a new description of the SL(3,R)-Hitchin component in terms of concave foliated flag structures on T^1S.