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.

Please join us for lunch after the talk!

Cheers,
Stephan