Speaker: Kate Poirier
When: Thursday, November 10, 2016, 1-2 PM
Where: Namm 702.
Title: Intersecting loops on surfaces and string topology

Abstract: String topology is the study of algebraic structures arising from intersecting loops in manifolds. These structures encode interesting topological and geometric information about the underlying manifold. The Goldman bracket is an example of a string topology operation which is given by intersecting loops on surfaces—manifolds of dimension two. In this talk, I will define the Goldman bracket for surfaces and introduce generalizations of it to string topology operations for manifolds of dimension three and higher. I will also formulate conjectures and describe work in progress concerning the richer algebraic structures we expect to see from generalized string topology operations.