2016 Intensive courses

14-15 December: A guided tour of symplectic topology by Jonny Evans (UCL)

Venues and times:

• Monday 14 December 9.00 start - 13.00 finish
• Tuesday 15 December 14.00 start - 18.00 finish

Symplectic geometry started life in classical dynamical systems as the most general geometrical framework in which one could make sense of Hamilton's equation of motion. Nowadays, it appears in all corners of mathematics, from algebraic geometry and representation theory to gauge theory and mirror symmetry. Dr Evans will give you a tour of the subject, starting from basic examples and eventually taking in some of his favourite theorems and phenomena. These will include (some of) the following:

• using moduli spaces of algebraic surfaces to study the topology of symplectic diffeomorphism groups
• finding symplectically knotted Lagrangian tori using holomorphic discs and wall-crossing
• Luttinger surgery, with applications to unknottedness and nonexistence of Lagrangian tori and Klein bottles

Pseudoholomorphic curves will appear (as a black-box), but the focus will be on applications.