Hello all, The next MaPSS talk of this semester will be at 17:00 on Mon 6th August in Carslaw 535. Feel free to come, as it is a great opportunity to meet fellow postgrads, listen to an interesting talk, and of course get free food! ************************************************************************************** Speaker: Dickson Annor Title: Representation Varieties for SL(3,C): The Trefoil Knot Abstract: Following the foundational work of Thurston, Culler and Shalen, the varieties of representations and characters of 3-manifold groups into SL(2,C) have been extensively studied, as both reflect geometric and topological properties of 3-manifolds. However, much less is known about the representations of 3-manifold groups into other Lie groups, notably SL(n,C) with n >= 3. In this talk, we will study representation varieties of the trefoil knot group into SL(3,C). Let G be the fundamental group of the complement of the trefoil knot in S^3. This has presentation G = <x,y | x^2 = y^3> = <s,t | sts = tst>. In particular, we will determine all representations up to conjugacy, using results of Fricke for SL(2,C) and Lawton for SL(3,C). ************************************************************************************** See you there! Details can also be found on the schoolâs new Postgraduate Society website: http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/MaPS/mapss.html Cheers, Alex