Department of Mathematics
Smooth 4-manifolds and Heegard Floer homology
Stanislav Jabuka
University of Nevada at Reno
This talk is a survey of important recent results from the theory of smooth 4-manifolds. Dimension 4 lives on threshold between low dimensions (1,2,3) and higher dimensions (5 and above) and as such exhibits phenomena not encountered in other dimensions. This makes the study of 4-manifolds particularly cumbersome and the main tools for manifold study - invariants of the smooth structure - have been very hard to construct. One such invariant, the Heegard Floer homology, has been discovered in 2001 by P. Ozsvath and Z. Szabo. It is the first example of a 3+1 dimensional TQFT and holds great potential to answer questions which have not been accessible via previously existing theories.
All interested persons are welcome.