Geometry, Topology and Dynamics Seminar
The seminar aims to introduce research topics in geometry, topology and dynamics and its interactions with other sciences on a simple level. Some topics are discussed over a two ot three-week period led by the same speaker (as a mini-course). Anyone interested in mathematics is welcome to attend.
Winter 2019
The seminar will meet regularly on Wednesday and occasiionally on another day of the week. The time and location is 16:00-17:00 at Lab 3, B700 unless otherwise noted.
| Date | Speaker | Title |
| 16 January | Hirofumi Sasahira (Kyushu University) | The Seiberg-Witten equations and topology |
| 22 January (Tuesday 15:00-16:00) | Tadayuki Watanabe (Shimane University) | Preliminary lecture I: Goussarov-Habiro's theory of graph surgery |
| 23 January (11:00-12:00, unit space B662) | Tadayuki Watanabe (Shimane University) | Preliminary lecture II: Kontsevich's characteristic classes (Chern-Simons perturbation theory configuration space integral) |
| 23 January | David Gabai (Princeton University) | The General 4 dimensional Light Bulb Theorem |
| 24 January (Thursday 16:00-17:00) | Tadayuki Watanabe (Shimane University) | Some exotic nontrivial elements of the rational homotopy groups of Diff(S^4) |
| 29 January (Tuesday 15:00-16:00) | Brian Seguin (Loyola University Chicago) | On the nonlocal curvature of surfaces and curves |
| 30 January | Shinpei Baba (Osaka University) | Neck-pinching of CP^1-structures |
| 18 February (Monday 16:00-17:00) | Harrison Chapman (Colorado State University) | Alternating knots are rare |
| 20 February | Jennifer Schultens (UC Davis) | |
| 21 February (Thursday 16:00-17:00) | Michael Kapovich (UC Davis) | |
| 25 February (Monday 16:00-17:00) | Dan Romik (UC Davis) | Viazovska's work on the sphere packing problem and some recent developments in number theory |
| 18 March (Monday 16:00 - 17:00) | Stephan Tillmann (University of Sydney) | Character varieties, ideal points and actions on trees |
| 19 March (Tuesday 15:00 - 16:00) | Stephan Tillmann (University of Sydney) | Essential surfaces detected by the character variety |
| 20 March | Ben Burton (University of Queensland) | Topology on tiny machines: logspace and finite-state complexity |
| 22 March (Friday 17:00 - 18:00) | Stephan Tillmann (University of Sydney) | Tropical geometry, normal surfaces and the character variety |
| 26 March (Tuesday 15:00 - 16:00) | Bernd Krauskopf (University of Auckland) | Global manifolds and the transition to chaos in the Lorenz system |
| 27 March | Hinke Osinga (University of Auckland) | Robust chaos: a tale of blenders, their computation, and their destruction |
| 23 May (Thursday 13:00-14:00 B715) | Hokuto Konno (Riken) | Non-smoothable bundles and gauge theory for families |
Fall 2018
The seminar will meet at 4:00 pm on Wednesday at Lab 3, B700 unless otherwise noted.
| Date | Speaker | Title |
| 2 October (Tuesday, 11:00-12:00, Lab 3 B717) | Makoto Narita (Okinawa National College of Technology) | Spacetime Singularities -An Introduction- |
| 24 October | Kenta Hayano (Keio University) | On Diagrams of Simplified Trisections and Mapping Class Groups |
| 31 October | Osamu Saeki (Kyushu University) | Unlinking singular locus from regular fibers and its application to submersions |
| 7 November | Kazuto Takao (Kyoto University) | Morse functions and singularities of product maps |
| 8 November (Thursday, 3-4 pm, unit space B662 in Lab 2) | Shinobu Hikami (OIST) | Topological gravity and intersection theory followed by math/math physcis tea (open to all) |
| 14 November | John Loftin (Rutgers University, Newark) | Neck pinch singularities in the geometry of surfaces |
| 5 December | Scott Carter (University of South Alabama) | Ribbon and string representations of finite subgroups of SU(2) |
Summer 2018
The seminar will meet at 3:00 pm on Wednesday at Lab 3, B700 unless otherwise noted.
| Date | Speaker | Title (click for abstract) |
| 9 May |
Linling Ru (OIST) Motoko Kato (Tokyo University) |
(1) A suspension flow with a Plykin attractor (2) On groups whose actions on finite-dimensional CAT(0) spaces have global fixed points (Lab2, B662) |
| 21 May | Jessica Purcell (Monash University) | Cusp shape and tunnel number (part 1) |
| 22 May | Jessica Purcell (Monash University) | Cusp shape and tunnel number (part 2) |
| 23 May | Jessica Purcell (Monash University) | Cusps and alternating knots |
|
24 May |
Joel Hass (UC Davis) |
Comparing shapes of genus zero [public lecture, no topology background expected] (4-5pm, Room B250) |
|
30 May |
Anastasiia Tsvietkova (OIST) | |
| 6 June | Josh Howie (Monash University) | Coiled Surfaces And The Slope Conjectures |
| 13 June-August 1 | Conferences/Research Travel/Summer Break | |
| 1 August, (Thursday) | Dale Koenig (OIST) | Computational complexity and knot theory |
| 9 August (Thursday) | Robert Tang (OIST) | Solving word problems in finitely presented groups |
| 16 August (Thursday) | Tirasan Khandhawit (OIST) | Stable Homotopy and Differential Topology |
Spring 2018