SMS scnews item created by Anne Thomas at Thu 14 Jun 2012 1610
Type: Seminar
Modified: Tue 19 Jun 2012 1145
Distribution: World
Expiry: 20 Jun 2012
Calendar1: 20 Jun 2012 1205-1255
CalLoc1: Carslaw 175
CalTitle1: Tillmann: Finite volume projective manifolds
Calendar2: 20 Jun 2012 1505-1555
CalLoc2: Carslaw 175
CalTitle2: Maher: Growth rates for stable commutator length
Auth: athomas@p615.pc (assumed)

# Group Actions Seminar: Tillmann, Maher

UPDATE: the order of speakers has been inverted, and both talks will be in Carslaw 175
(not the AGR).

The next Group Actions Seminar will be on Wednesday 20 June at the University of
Sydney.  The speakers are Stephan Tillmann (Sydney) at 12 noon and Joseph Maher (CUNY
Staten Island) at 3pm.  Their titles and abstracts are below.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wednesday 20 June

Time: 12 noon

Location: Carslaw 175, University of Sydney

Speaker: Stephan Tillmann (Sydney)

Title: Finite volume projective manifolds

Abstract: A convex real projective manifold or orbifold is M/G, where M is the interior
of a compact convex set in real projective space disjoint from some hyperplane and G is
a discrete group of projective transformations which preserves M.  The manifold is
strictly convex if there is no line segment in the boundary of M.  Strictly convex
structures have many similarities to hyperbolic structures, particularly in the finite
volume case.  By contrast, properly convex structures are far more general.

I will discuss aspects of projective manifolds from the perspective of a low-dimensional
topologist, giving a snap-shot of the material in the paper arXiv:1109.0585 with Cooper
and Long.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wednesday 20 June

Time: 3pm

Location: Carslaw 175, University of Sydney

Speaker: Joseph Maher (CUNY Staten Island)

Title: Growth rates for stable commutator length

Abstract: We give a gentle introduction to stable commutator length, and then show that
stable commutator length grows as n / log n, where n is the length of a random walk or
random geodesic in a hyperbolic group.

----------------------------------------------------------------


If you are registered you may mark the scnews item as read.
School members may try to .