Geometry seminar:    Spring 2007

 

Tuesday 4/24

Alexander Shumakovitch (GWU)

 

Tuesday 4/10

Stefan Friedl (Montreal)

Subgroup separability and symplectic 4-manifolds

 

Abstract:

In 1976 Thurston showed that if N is a fibered 3-manifold, then

S^1 x N is symplectic. In this talk we will show that the converse

holds if pi_1(N) satisfies certain subgroup separability properties.

We will not assume any prior knowledge of symplectic geometry.

 

Tuesday 3/20

Kevin Wortman (Yale)

Quasi-isometries of arithmetic groups

 

Tuesday 3/13

Dan Margalit (University of Utah)

Generating the symmetric Torelli group

 

Tuesday 2/20

Tom Mark

Constructions of exotic smooth 4-manifolds

 

 

Geometry seminar:    Fall 2006

 

Tuesday 9/5

Slava Krushkal

On non-abelian Alexander duality in dimension 4

 

Tuesday 9/12

Tom Mark

Heegaard Floer homology and its applications

 

Tuesday 9/19

Tom Mark

Heegaard Floer homology and symplectic geometry

 

Tuesday 10/3

Tom Mark

Introduction to the Casson invariant

 

Tuesday 10/17

Martin Kassabov, Cornell

Kazhdan property T and its applications

Abstract:

In this talk I will define Kazhdan property T and its variants and discuss several

recent results. In particular I will describe how representation theory can be

used to study finite covers of 3 dimensional manifolds and outline an ongoing

program, which may lead to a proof of the Virtual Hakken Conjecture.

 

Tuesday 10/24

Sucharit Sarkar, Princeton

A combinatorial description of some Heegaard Floer homologies

 

Tuesday 10/31

Slava Krushkal

Topological arbiters

 

Tuesday 11/28

Tom Mark

An introduction to Taubes’s work on the Weinstein conjecture

 

Thursday 11/30

Brendan Owens, LSU

Knots, crossing changes, and Heegaard Floer homology

 

 

 

Archives:

Geometry seminar, Fall 04

Geometry seminar, Fall 03