Third Year Major Oral: Knot Invariants from Singular Instantons
Speaker: John Naughton, Washington University in St. Louis
Abstract: The instanton Floer homology is a three-manifold invariant defined using a certain infinite dimensional analogue of Morse homology. Kronheimer and Mrowka introduced a variant for webs embedded in three-manifolds: the singular instanton homology. In this talk, we will discuss the construction of these Floer homologies and see how additional structures -- such as equivariance and a filtration by the Chern-Simons functional -- can be used to obtain bounds on classical knot invariants. Finally, we’ll discuss future directions of study.
Advisor: Ali Daemi