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

2008/06/03

16:30-18:00   Room #056 (Graduate School of Math. Sci. Bldg.)
山口 祥司 (東京大学大学院数理科学研究科)
On the geometry of certain slices of the character variety of a knot group
[ Abstract ]
joint work with Fumikazu Nagasato (Meijo University)
This talk is concerned with certain subsets in the character variety of a knot group.
These subsets are called '"slices", which are defined as a level set of a regular function associated to a meridian of a knot.
They are related to character varieties for branched covers along the knot.
Some investigations indicate that an equivariant theory for a knot is connected to a theory for branched covers via slices, for example, the equivariant signature of a knot and the equivariant Casson invariant.
In this talk, we will construct a map from slices into the character varieties for branched covers and investigate the properties.
In particular, we focus on slices called "trace-free", which are used to define the Casson-Lin invariant, and the relation to the character variety for two--fold branched cover.