SMS scnews item created by Haotian Wu at Tue 3 Oct 2017 1211
Type: Seminar
Modified: Wed 4 Oct 2017 2253
Distribution: World
Expiry: 4 Apr 2018
Calendar1: 5 Oct 2017 1200-1300
CalLoc1: Carslaw 373
CalTitle1: Geometry & Topology Seminar: Daniel Mathews -- Plane graphs, special alternating links, and contact geometry
Auth: haotianw@como.maths.usyd.edu.au

Geometry & Topology Seminar

Plane graphs, special alternating links, and contact geometry

Daniel Mathews (Monash)

Thursday 5 October 12:00–13:00 in Carslaw 373.

Please join us for lunch after the talk!

Abstract: There is a beautiful theory of polytopes associated to bipartite plane graphs, due to Alexander Postnikov, Tamas Kalman, and others. Via a construction known as the median construction, this theory extends to knots and links -- more specifically, minimal genus Seifert surfaces for special alternating links. The complements of these Seifert surfaces also have interesting geometry. The relationships between these objects provide many interesting connections between graphs, spanning trees, polytopes, knot and link polynomials, and even Floer homology. In recent work with Kalman we showed how these connections extend to contact geometry. I'll try to explain something of these ideas.


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