Lefschetz fibrations: rigidity and flexibility
Topic: Lefschetz fibrations: rigidity and flexibility
Date: January 18th to 24th, 2016
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, at this house.
Description: This will be an intensive weeklong workshop for young researchers working in symplectic geometry and related fields. Talks will be given by the participants and there will also be organized discussion sessions. The topic is Lefschetz fibration techniques in symplectic geometry, focusing on recent developments on both the rigid and flexible sides. On the rigid side one has holomorphic curve invariants, notably symplectic cohomology and wrapped Floer cohomology. These invariants are starting to become more computable, making it possible to apply them to recognize and distinguish exotic symplectic manifolds. At the same time, recent breakthroughs in symplectic flexibility have introduced new tools for studying Lefschetz fibrations and highlighted the importance of geometric criteria for detecting flexibility. We now have many interesting examples of Lefschetz fibrations coming from algebraic geometry, mirror symmetry, and elsewhere, and we are only beginnning to understand how to study them. The goal of this workshop is to bring participants up to the forefront of this subject and discuss the future directions of the field.
Organization committee: Roger Casals (MIT), Robert Castellano (Columbia), Kyler Siegel (Stanford), Umut Varolgunes (MIT), Morgan Weiler (Berkeley)
Scientific committee: Sheel Ganatra (Stanford), Mark McLean (Stony Brook), Emmy Murphy (MIT)
Contact: If you have any questions about the workshop, feel free to send an email to symplecticworkshop2016@gmail.com.
Notes from workshop: available here (Courtesy of Cedric De Groote).
