Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

The Dehn Nielsen Baer Theorem states that the extended mapping class group is isomorphic to the outer automorphisms of π1(Sg). The theorem highlights the connection between the topological invariant of distinct symmetries of a space and its fundamental group. This talk will incorporate ideas from algebra, topology, and hyperbolic geometry!

In the first part of the talk I shall present a linear model based on the Schrodinger equation with constant coefficient and periodic boundary conditions that explains the so-called Talbot effect in optics. In the second part I will make a connection of this Talbot effect with turbulence through the Schrodinger map which is a geometric non-linear partial differential equation.

The algebraic K-theory of the sphere spectrum, K(S), encodes significant information in both homotopy theory and differential topology. In order to understand K(S), one can apply the techniques of chromatic homotopy theory in an attempt to approximate K(S) by certain localizations K(L_n S). The L_n S are in turn approximated by the Johnson-Wilson spectra E(n) = BP[v_n^{-1}], and it is not unreasonable to expect to be able to compute K(BP). This would lead inductively to information about K(E(n)) via the conjectural fiber sequence K(BP) --> K(BP) --> K(E(n)). In this talk, I will explain the basics of the K-theory of ring spectra, define the ring spectra of interest, and construct some actual localization sequences in their K-theory. I will then use trace methods to show that it the actual fiber of K(BP) --> K(E(n)) differs from K(BP), meaning that the situation is more complicated than was originally hoped. All this is joint work with Ben Antieau and Tobias Barthel.

This is the fifth of several talks discussing embeddings of manifolds. I will discuss some general results for smooth manifolds, but focus on embeddings of contact manifolds into other contact manifolds. Particular attention will be paid to embeddings of contact 3-manifolds in contact 5-manifolds. I will discuss two approaches to this last problem that are being developed jointly with Yanki Lekili.