SMS scnews item created by Stephan Tillmann at Mon 28 Jul 2014 1029
Type: Seminar
Modified: Mon 28 Jul 2014 1030
Distribution: World
Expiry: 27 Oct 2014
Calendar1: 30 Jul 2014 1100-1200
CalLoc1: Carslaw 535A
CalTitle1: Geometry-Toplology-Analysis Seminar: Maher -- The Casson invariants of random Heegaard splittings
Auth: tillmann@p710.pc (assumed)

# Geometry-Topology-Analysis Seminar: Maher -- The Casson invariants of random Heegaard splittings

Dear All,

The Geometry-Topology-Analysis Seminar in Semester 2
takes place on Wednesdays from 11:00-12:00.

Our first talk is this week:

Wednesday, 30 July, 11:00-12:00 in Carslaw 535A

Speaker: Joseph Maher (CUNY Staten Island)

Title: The Casson invariants of random Heegaard splittings

Abstract: The mapping class group element resulting from a finite length
random walk on the mapping class group may be used as the gluing map for a
Heegaard splitting, and the resulting 3-manifold is known as a random
Heegaard splitting. We use these to show the existence of infinitely many
closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds with any given value of the Casson
invariant. This is joint work with Alex Lubotzky and Conan Wu.