Tuesday Seminar on Topology

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Date, time & place Tuesday 17:00 - 18:30 056Room #056 (Graduate School of Math. Sci. Bldg.)
Organizer(s) KAWAZUMI Nariya, KITAYAMA Takahiro, SAKASAI Takuya

2017/06/27

17:00-18:30   Room #056 (Graduate School of Math. Sci. Bldg.)
Eiko Kin (Osaka University)
Braids and hyperbolic 3-manifolds from simple mixing devices (JAPANESE)
[ Abstract ]
Taffy pullers are devices for pulling candy. One can build braids from the motion of rods for taffy pullers. According to a beautiful article ``A mathematical history of taffy pullers" by Jean-Luc Thiffeault, all taffy pullers (except the first one) give rise to pseudo-Anosov braids. This means that the devices mix candies effectively. Following a study of Thiffeault, I will discuss which pseudo-Anosov braid is realized by taffy pullers. I will explain an interesting connection between braids coming from taffy pullers. I also discuss the hyperbolic mapping tori obtained from taffy pullers. Intriguingly, the two most common taffy pullers give rise to the complements of the the minimally twisted 4-chain link and 5-chain link which are important examples for the study of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds with small volumes.

Reference: A mathematical history of taffy pullers, Jean-Luc Thiffeault, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.00152.pdf