Australian Geometric Topology Webinar (AGTW)

AGTW Broadcast 

Date: Wednesday, 16 September 2026 

Time: 12noon-1pm 

Speaker: Tali Pinsky (Monash University) 

Location: SMRI Seminar Room (Macleay A12 Room 301) 

Title: Building Anosov flows on the figure eight knot complement.  

Abstract: I will describe a new construction of a bicontact structure on the figure
eight knot complement, or similarly on any punctured torus bundle over the circle.  Such
a structure defines a flow as the intersection of the two contact structures involved.
We’ll see a gluing theorem that allows us to produce a closed manifold so that the
flow is completed to an Anosov flow.  Finally, we'll use this to show that a manifold
produced by gluing two copies of the figure eight knot complement may carry many
nonequivalent Anosov flows, and likewise a manifold composed of a figure eight
complement and a trefoil complement.  

This is joint work with Federico Salmoiraghi.