We meet Thursdays at 2:45–3:45 pm in Whitney Hall 100E. This semester's organizers are James Hyde and Lorenzo Ruffoni. The seminar has an announcement mailing list open to all.
Topics include: geometric group theory, differential geometry and topology, low-dimensional topology, algebraic topology, and homotopy theory.
Abstract:
It has been of popular interest over the last several decades to count geodesics with respect to their length on flat surfaces. Asymptotics of these counting functions for generic translation surfaces, which are Riemann surfaces with a holomorphic one form, have been determined by the pioneering work of Eskin-Masur-Zorich. There is a more general type of flat surface called a (1/k)-translation surface, which is a Riemann surface with a k-differential. Equivalently, a (1/k)-translation surface is a collection of polygons in the complex plane with sides identified pairwise by translation and possible rotations of 2pi/k. In this talk, we will discuss asymptotics of these counting functions on generic (1/k)-translation surfaces when k is prime and genus is more than two. The main tools I will discuss are GL+(2,R)-orbit closures and a result of Eskin-Mirzakhani-Mohammadi which relates asymptotics to GL+(2,R)-orbit closures.
Abstract: Gromov and Thurston used hyperbolic branched cover manifolds to construct the first known examples of compact manifolds which admit a pinched negatively curved metric, but do not admit a hyperbolic metric. Fine and Premoselli (n=4) and Hamenstadt and Jackel (n > 4) later used these same manifolds to construct the first known examples of negatively curved Einstein metrics (in these respective dimensions) that are not locally symmetric.
Recently, Stover and Toledo proved that analogous complex hyperbolic branched cover manifolds exist. They also proved that these manifolds do not admit a locally symmetric metric, and a result of Zheng shows that these manifolds are Kahler. In this talk I will present recent work proving the existence of pinched negatively curved metrics, as well as the existence of negatively curved Kahler-Einstein metrics (due to Guenancia and Hamenstadt) on these complex hyperbolic branched cover manifolds. Part of my presented work is joint with Lafont.
Abstract: A fundamental algorithmic question in group theory is the Word Problem for finitely generated groups, which asks whether there exists an algorithm to decide whether two words on the generators represent the same group element. A related notion is the Dehn function of a finitely presented group, the smallest isoperimetric function of the presentation's Cayley complex. While the Dehn function gives an upper bound for the complexity of the Word Problem for that group, this bound is only meaningful in the class of finitely presented groups and is very far from sharp even in this class. We resolve this disconnect by instead considering the Dehn functions of the finitely presented groups into which a group embeds, demonstrating a refinement of the Higman embedding theorem that gives a potentially quasi-optimal bound on the Dehn function of the ambient group.
Abstract: Gromov introduced macroscopic dimension of metric spaces in order to study large scale properties of manifolds. He conjectured that a closed $n$-manifold which admits Positive Scaler Curvature metric, should have its universal cover to be of macroscopic dimension at most $n-2$, with respect to the pull back metric on it. This conjecture depends a lot on the fundamental group of the base manifold. For $n>4$, closed spin $n$-manifolds $M$, we developed sufficient condition on $\pi_1(M)$, to verify the conjecture. When $\pi_1(M)$ is product of $2$-dimensional groups (i.e. groups with classifying space a $2$-dimensional CW complex), $\mathbb Z_2$-summands in their homology creates a problem for application of our technique. We could resolve this in the case of certain one-relator groups, including Baumslag-Solitar, and certain others, by passing to some finite index subgroup of them not admitting $\mathbb Z_2$-torsion in homology. This is done by the well-known technique of Fox calculus, to analyze boundary maps of cells of finite index covers. I will try to revisit this technique and sketch a proof our result.
Abstract: The Pontryagin-Thom construction gives an isomorphism between the cobordism group of framed n-manifolds and the nth stable homotopy group of the sphere spectrum. The G-equivariant Pontryagin-Thom construction gives an isomorphism between the cobordism group of V-framed G-manifolds and the Vth stable homotopy group of the G-equivariant sphere spectrum. We will discuss both of these constructions and then present some new explicit descriptions of the images of each 1-dimensional manifold equipped with an action by the cyclic group of order 2 in their relevant homotopy groups. We subsequently provide a new perspective on some key differences between the equivariant and non-equivariant Hopf fibration.
Abstract: In the 1960's W.C. Hsiang and W.Y. Hsiang showed that exotic spheres admit less symmetries than the standard sphere. However, constructing symmetries on exotic spheres has been a difficult task. It is still an open question whether or not every exotic sphere admits a smooth, nontrivial S^1-action. In fact, it is open whether or not every exotic sphere admits a smooth, nontrivial C_p-action, where C_p denotes the cyclic group of order p. In this talk, I will discuss recent work with Nick Kuhn and J.D. Quigley relating this problem to stable homotopy theory.
Abstract: Homotopical Combinatorics is a newer area of Algebraic Topology that studies in a more tractable manner the homotopical structure of topological spaces with the action of a group. The main objects of study in this new area are Transfer systems, originally created with the goal of understanding equivariant analogs of higher coherences. In a more category-theoretic language, a transfer system on a poset, or more generally a finite category, C, is a wide subcategory of C closed under pullbacks. This talk will focus on the case when C=Sub(G), the subgroup lattice of a finite group, G. Subsequent work shows that transfer systems occur naturally as the acyclic fibrations of nicer categories known as model category and their are universal constructions that provide a way to move between these categories; these are called left and right Bousfield localizations. In this we will see how transfer systems change under these types of constructions.
Abstract: There are many situations in geometry or elsewhere in mathematics where it is natural or convenient to explore infinite groups of symmetries via their actions on finite objects. But how hard is it find these finite manifestations and to what extent does the collection of all such actions determine the infinite group?
In this colloquium, I will sketch some of the rich history of such problems and then describe some of the great advances in recent years. I'll describe pairs of distinct groups that have the same finite images and I'll sketch the proof of some “profinite rigidity results”, i.e. theorems showing that in certain circumstances one can identify an infinite group if one knows its set of finite images.
Abstract: The spectral gap of the Hodge Laplacian of functions (or,
equivalently, exact 1-forms) is a very well-studied fundamental
quantity associated to a hyperbolic three-manifold. In recent years,
the problem of understanding its counterpart on coexact 1-forms has
also spurred a lot of activity because of its relation with questions
in number theory and low-dimensional topology. In this talk, after
introducing the geometric setup and highlighting some fundamental
differences between these two quantities, I will focus on some
structural properties of the set of coexact 1-form spectral gaps of
hyperbolic rational homology spheres. In particular, I will discuss a
construction that allows to determine somewhat explicitly some
interesting accumulation points of the set of such spectral gaps. This
is joint work with M. Lipnowski.
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(Spring break - no seminar)
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