USNA Pure Mathematics Seminar

The talks for the academic year 2007-2008 are held Wednesdays in the 3rd floor seminar room of Chauvenet Hall at 3:45 pm unless otherwise stated.

 

Speaker:

Mike McLendon


Washington College

 

Title:

The skein algebra of a surface

 

Abstract: Given a surface $F$, the cylinder over the surface is the Cartesian product of $F$ and the unit interval. The skein module of $F \times [0,1]$ is formed by considering the kinds of knots and links that can exist inside this manifold. By stacking two copies of $F \times [0,1]$ together, we can define a multiplication on the skein module to create the skein algebra of $F$, denoted $K(F)$. We will look at the skein algebra of the annulus, the torus, and the genus two surface. In particular, we will investigate the commutators of the skein algebras of the torus and the genus two surface using the non-separating simple closed curves on those surfaces.

 

Time: 3:45pm, March 5, 2008