2:00 pm Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Junior Topology: Contact topology and Legendrian knot theory by Hunter Vallejos in RLM 12.166
I will introduce general contact manifolds and offer some examples of why it is interesting to study Legendrian submanifolds of contact manifolds. Then, we will segue into Legendrian knot theory. After distinguishing Legendrian knot theory from general (topological) knot theory, we will see how the introduction of a contact structure enables us to construct sophisticated Legendrian knot invariants. We will, in particular, learn about contact homology on the Chekanov-Eliashberg differential graded algebra of a Legendrian knot, with the goal of understanding what Legendrian knot theorists think about. You should come to my talk because Legendrian knot theory has some interesting quirks -- for example, one need not keep track of knot crossing information when working with knot diagrams! Submitted by
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