• Geometry of quotient varieties and the algebra of conformal blocks (Han-Bom Moon Fordham University)

    Roberts North 104, CMC 320 E. 9th St., Claremont, CA, United States

    An important question in classical representation theory is when the tensor product of two irreducible representations has another representation as a factor. In this talk, I will introduce a quantum generalization of this question and explain how we may relate this question to geometry of quotients of certain complex manifolds. This is joint work with […]

  • Enhancements of the quandle coloring invariant for knots (Karina Cho, Harvey Mudd College)

    Roberts North 104, CMC 320 E. 9th St., Claremont, CA, United States

    Quandles are algebraic structures that play nicely with knots. The multiplicative structure of finite quandles gives us a way to "color" knot diagrams, and the number of such colorings for a given knot and quandle is called the quandle coloring invariant. We strengthen this invariant by examining the relationships between the colorings, which are given […]

  • Topology Seminar: Sam Nelson (CMC)

    Millikan 2099, Pomona College 610 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA, United States

    Title: Biquandle Brackets and Knotoids Abstract: Biquandle brackets are a type of quantum enhancement of the  biquandle counting invariant for oriented knots and links, defined by a set of skein relations with coefficients which are functions of biquandle colors at a crossing. In this talk we use biquandle brackets to enhance the biquandle counting matrix […]

  • Topology Seminar: Jesse Levitt (USC)

    Millikan 2099, Pomona College 610 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA, United States

    Title: Understanding Structure in the Single Variable Knot Polynomials Abstract: We examine the dimensionality and internal structure of the aggregated data produced by the Alexander, Jones, and Z0 polynomials using topological data analysis and dimensional reduction techniques. By examining several families of knots, including over 10 million distinct examples, we find that the Jones data is well described as a three […]

  • Topology Seminar: Mauricio Gomez Lopez (U. Oregon)

    Title: Cobordism Categories and Spaces of Manifolds. Abstract: Cobordisms have been one of the central objects in topology since the pioneering work of Rene Thom, which provided the first link between manifolds and homotopy theory. In more recent years, there has been much focus on cobordism categories. These play a fundamental role in the study […]

  • Paper Strip Knots (David Bachman)

    Millikan 2099, Pomona College 610 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA, United States

    I will discuss joint work with Jim Hoste, where we prove that a unique folded strip of paper can follow any polygonal knot with odd stick number. In the even stick number case there are either infinitely many, or none.

  • Topology Triple-Header!

    Millikan 2099, Pomona College 610 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA, United States

    This triple-header of topology talks will include three speakers: First, Hyeran Cho from The Ohio State University will speak about Derivation of Schubert normal forms of 2-bridge knots from (1,1)-diagrams. In this talk, we show that the dual (1, 1)-diagram of a (1, 1)-diagram (a.k.a. a two pointed genus one Heegaard diagram) D(a, 0, 1, […]

  • Dan Douglas (USC)

    Millikan 2099, Pomona College 610 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA, United States

    Abstract TBA

  • Stefano Vidussi (UCRiverside)

    Title: The BNS invariant of the fundamental group of a surface bundle over a surface. Abstract: We will discuss some new results on the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel invariant of these groups, showing in particular that (with obvious exceptions) they algebraically fiber. As a corollary, we show that for "most" bundles these groups are not coherent.

  • Tommaso Cremaschi (USC)

    Title: Volumes and filling collections of multicurves Abstract: In this talk we will be concerned with links L in a Seifert-Fibered space N such that their projection to the base surface is a collection of curves G in minimal position. After stating a hyperbolization result, for the complement of L, in terms of G we […]