SMS scnews item created by Martina Chirilus-Bruckner at Thu 22 May 2014 1558
Type: Seminar
Distribution: World
Expiry: 13 Jun 2014
Calendar1: 6 Jun 2014 1430-1530
CalLoc1: Carslaw 175, USyd
Auth: martinac@pmartinac3.pc (assumed)

Joint Colloquium Sydney–UNSW

Quantum groups, then and now

David Jordan

Date:
Fri, 06/06/2014 - 2:30pm

Location:
Carslaw 175, USyd

Speaker:
David Jordan

Title:
Quantum groups, then and now

Abstract:
Quantum groups are not really groups, and are only a little bit quantum. What they in fact provide for us is a beautiful and compact framework for tweaking the representation theory of classical groups like GL_2 to yield payouts in low dimensional topology. In this colloquium, I'll explain one of Drinfeld's early constructions of quantum groups via monodromies -- i.e. ordinary differential equations -- on CP^1, and then a more algebraic take on them due to Drinfeld, Jimbo and Kohno. I'll then explain a construction of Reshetikhin and Turaev that recovers essentially all known polynomial invariants of knots from this framework. Finally, I'll highlight a remarkable property of quantum groups: they admit a kind of Fourier transform familiar to abelian groups, but lacking for non-abelian groups like GL_2. It turns out this is also a reflection of their role in low dimensional topology.

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