Seminars and Colloquia by Series

Approximating C^0 foliations with contact structures

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, February 9, 2015 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Will Kazez – University of Georgia
I will discuss Eliashberg and Thurston's theorem that C^2 taut foliations can be approximated by tight contact structures. I will try to explain the importance of their work and why it is useful to weaken their smoothness assumption. This work is joint with Rachel Roberts.

Model structures for coalgebras

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, February 2, 2015 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Joseph Hirsh – MIT
Classically, there are two model category structures on coalgebras in the category of chain complexes over a field. In one, the weak equivalences are maps which induce an isomorphism on homology. In the other, the weak equivalences are maps which induce a weak equivalence of algebras under the cobar functor. We unify these two approaches, realizing them as the two extremes of a partially ordered set of model category structures on coalgebras over a cooperad satisfying mild conditions.

Combinatorial tangle Floer homology

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, January 26, 2015 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Ina Petkova – Rice University
In joint work with Vera Vertesi, we extend the functoriality in Heegaard Floer homology by defining a Heegaard Floer invariant for tangles which satisfies a nice gluing formula. We will discuss theconstruction of this combinatorial invariant for tangles in S^3, D^3, and I x S^2. The special case of S^3 gives back a stabilized version of knot Floer homology.

The Cartan-Hadamard Problem and the Little Prince

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 - 14:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Greg Kuperberg – UCDavis –
Among n-dimensional regions with fixed volume, which one hasthe least boundary? This question is known as an isoperimetricproblem; its nature depends on what is meant by a "region". I willdiscuss variations of an isoperimetric problem known as thegeneralized Cartan-Hadamard conjecture: If Ω is a region in acomplete, simply connected n-manifold with curvature bounded above byκ ≤ 0, then does it have the least boundary when the curvature equalsκ and Ω is round? This conjecture was proven when n = 2 by Weil andBol; when n = 3 by Kleiner, and when n = 4 and κ = 0 by Croke. Injoint work with Benoit Kloeckner, we generalize Croke's result to mostof the case κ < 0, and we establish a theorem for κ > 0. It was originally inspired by the problem of finding the optimal shape of aplanet to maximize gravity at a single point, such as the place wherethe Little Prince stands on his own small planet.

Geometric representation theory, symplectic duality, and 3d supersymmetric gauge theory

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Friday, January 9, 2015 - 14:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Tudor Dimofte – IAS, Princeton –
Recently, a "symplectic duality" between D-modules on certainpairs of algebraic symplectic manifolds was discovered, generalizingclassic work of Beilinson-Ginzburg-Soergel in geometric representationtheory. I will discuss how such dual spaces (some known and some new) arisenaturally in supersymmetric gauge theory in three dimensions.

On the duality between "free" and "forgetful” constructions

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, December 8, 2014 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Emily Riehl – Harvard University
Groups, rings, modules, and compact Hausdorff spaces have underlying sets ("forgetting" structure) and admit "free" constructions. Moreover, each type of object is completely characterized by the shadow of this free-forgetful duality cast on the category of sets, and this syntactic encoding provides formulas for direct and inverse limits. After we describe a typical encounter with adjunctions, monads, and their algebras, we introduce a new "homotopy coherent" version of this adjoint duality together with a graphical calculus that is used to define a homotopy coherent algebra in quite general contexts, such as appear in abstract homotopy theory or derived algebraic geometry.

Homology three-spheres and surgery obstructions

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, December 1, 2014 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Tye Lidman – University of Texas, Austin
The Lickorish-Wallace theorem states that every closed, connected, orientable three-manifold can be expressed as surgery on a link in the three-sphere (i.e., remove a neighborhood of a disjoint union of embedded $S^1$'s from $S^3$ and re-glue). It is natural to ask which three-manifolds can be obtained by surgery on a single knot in the three-sphere. We discuss a new way to obstruct integer homology spheres from being surgery on a knot and give some examples. This is joint work with Jennifer Hom and Cagri Karakurt.

Nonnegative curvature and pseudoisotopies

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, November 24, 2014 - 14:05 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
Igor Belegradek – Georgia Tech
I will sketch how to detect nontrivial higher homotopy groups of the space of complete nonnegatively curved metrics on an open manifold.

Localization sequences in the algebraic K-theory of ring spectra

Series
Geometry Topology Seminar
Time
Monday, November 17, 2014 - 14:00 for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 006
Speaker
David Gepner – Purdue University
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.

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