Previous Special Year Seminar

May
03
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

NonLERFness of groups of certain mixed 3-manifolds and arithmetic hyperbolic $n$-manifolds
Hongbin Sun
2:00pm|S-101

I will show that the groups of mixed 3-manifolds containing arithmetic hyperbolic pieces and the groups of certain noncompact arithmetic hyperbolic $n$-manifolds ($n > 3$) are not LERF. The main ingredient is a study of the set of virtual fibered...

Apr
20
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Meridional essential surfaces of unbounded Euler characteristics in knot complements
João Nogueira
2:00pm|S-101

In this talk we will discuss further the existence of knot complements with essential surfaces of unbounded Euler characteristics. More precisely, we show the existence of a knot with an essential tangle decomposition for any number of strings. We...

Apr
14
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

A graph coloring problem and its algebraic and topological consequences
Daniel Wise
2:00pm|S-101

I will first describe a simple graph coloring problem and survey some examples of graphs for which the coloring problem has or has no solution. I will then give a quick introduction to Bestvina-Brady Morse theory. Finally, I will describe the...

Apr
12
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Veering Dehn surgery
Saul Schleimer
2:00pm|S-101

(Joint with Henry Segerman.) It is a theorem of Moise that every three-manifold admits a triangulation, and thus infinitely many. Thus, it can be difficult to learn anything really interesting about the three-manifold from any given triangulation...

Apr
05
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Collapsing hyperbolic structures: from rigidity to flexibility and back
Steve Kerckhoff
2:00pm|S-101

This talk will be about some phenomena that occur as (singular) hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds collapse to and transition through other geometric structures. Typically, the collapsed structures are much more flexible than the hyperbolic...

Mar
22
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Slowly converging pseudo-Anosovs
Mark Bell
2:00pm|S-101

A classical property of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes is that they act on the space of projective measured laminations with north-south dynamics. This means that under iteration of such a mapping class, laminations converge exponentially quickly...

Mar
18
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Counting closed orbits of Anosov flows in free homotopy classes
2:00pm|S-101

This is joint work with Thomas Barthelme of Penn State University. There are Anosov and pseudo-Anosov flows so that some orbits are freely homotopic to infinitely many other orbits. An Anosov flow is $R$-covered if either the stable or unstable...

Mar
08
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Proper affine actions of right angled Coxeter groups
Jeffrey Danciger
2:00pm|S-101

We prove that any right-angled Coxeter group on $k$ generators admits a proper action by affine transformations on $\mathbb R^{k(k-1)/2}$. As a corollary, many interesting groups admit proper affine actions including surface groups, hyperbolic three...

Mar
01
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Morse index and multiplicity of min-max minimal hypersurfaces
2:00pm|S-101

The Min-max Theory for the area functional, started by Almgren in the early 1960s and greatly improved by Pitts in 1981, was left incomplete because it gave no Morse index estimate for the min-max minimal hypersurface. Nothing was said also about...

Feb
23
2016

Geometric Structures on 3-manifolds

Free group Cayley graph and measure decompositions
2:00pm|S-101

I will talk about convex-cocompact representations of finitely generated free group $F_g$ into $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb C)$. First I will talk about Schottky criterion. There are many ways of characterizes Schottky group. In particular, convex hull...