Link TQFTs and the unknotting number
Organizers
Speaker
Eaman Eftekhary
Time
Thursday, February 27, 2025 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Venue
A6-101
Online
Zoom 435 529 7909
(BIMSA)
Abstract
Many of the application of Heegaard-Floer theory in low dimensional topology come from its structure as a Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT for short). Among the applications in knot theory, the lower bounds on the unknotting number are particularly interesting, since the outcome may be described without reference to advanced mathematics. Besides intriguing results answering some open questions, there are also many conjectures with very simple statements which stay widely open. Samples of such open questions are discussed in the talk.
Speaker Intro
Eaman Eftekhary is currently the Head of School of Mathematics at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) in Tehran, Iran. He obtained his PhD from Princeton University in 2004, and was a BP Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Harvard before joining IPM as a faculty member in 2007. He is a member of Iran's Academy of Science and has previously served as the President of Iran National Science Foundation from 2019 to 2022.