MaPSS: Maths Postgraduate Seminar Series: Dickson Annor -- Representation Varieties for SL(3,C): The Trefoil Knot

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!

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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).

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See you there!

Details can also be found on the school’s new Postgraduate Society website: 
http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/MaPS/mapss.html 
 
Cheers,
Alex