Special Colloquium
Lenny Ng
Stanford University
Contact geometry, holomorphic curves, and topology
Abstract: I will discuss a program for studying smooth manifolds and submanifolds
using contact geometry. By counting holomorphic curves in certain
canonical contact manifolds associated to these smooth objects, one
obtains smooth invariants that are quite strong. I will describe one
consequence of this program, a knot invariant called knot contact
homology, and examine its properties.
Friday January 20, 2006 at 3:00 PM in SEO 636