The algebraic structure of mapping class groups is deep and beautiful; in this talk, we'll explore some curious conjectures and definite theorems about the structure and quality of different subgroups of the mapping class group.
The group of homeomorphisms on a surface is called the mapping class group. This talk will cover some background and key results to provide a foundation for related talks that will occur later in the semester.
The Teichmüller space is the space of hyperbolic structures on surfaces, and there are different flavors depending on the class of surfaces. In this talk we consider the enhanced Teichmüller space which includes additional data at boundary components. The enhanced version can be parametrized by shear coordinates, and in these coordinates, the Weil-Peterson Poisson structure has a simple form. We will discuss a construction of the quantum Teichmüller space corresponding to this Poisson structure.
Bluejeans: https://bluejeans.com/872588027
I will introduce Serre spectral sequences, then compute some examples. The talk will be in most part following Allen Hatcher's notes on spectral sequences.
A knot in the 3-sphere is slice if it bounds a smooth disc in the 4-ball. A knot is ribbon if it bounds a self-intersecting disc with only singularities that are closed arcs consisting of intersection points of the disc with itself. Every ribbon knot is a slice knot; the converse is a famous unsolved conjecture of Fox. This talk will show some recent interesting progress around the slice-ribbon conjecture.
Grid homology is a purely combinatorial description of knot Floer homology in which the counting of psuedo-holomorphic disks is replaced with a counting of polygons in grid diagrams. This talk will provide an introduction to this theory, and is aimed at an audience with little to no experience with Heegaard Floer homology.
We give a purely contact and symplectic geometric characterization of Anosov flows in dimension 3 and set up a framework to use tools from contact and symplectic geometry and topology in the study of questions about Anosov dynamics. If time permits, we will discuss some uniqueness results for the underlying (bi-) contact structure for an Anosov flow, and/or a characterization of Anosovity based on Reeb flows.
Cabling is one of important knot operations. We study various properties of cable knots and how to characterize the cable knots by its complement.
Poincare Conjecture, undoubtedly, is the most influential and challenging problem in the world of Geometry and Topology. Over a century, it has left it’s mark on developing the rich theory around it. In this talk I will give a brief history of the development of Topology and then I will focus on the Exotic behavior of manifolds. In the last part of the talk, I will concentrate more on the theory of 4-manifolds.
In 1925, Heisenberg introduced non-commutativity of coordinates, now known as quantization, to explain the spectral lines of atoms. In topology, finding quantizations of (symplectic or more generally Poisson) spaces can reveal more intricate structures on them. In this talk, we will introduce the main ingredients of quantization. As a concrete example, we will discuss the SL2-character variety, which is closely related to the Teichmüller space, and the skein algebra as its quantization.
