University of Sydney Algebra Seminar

Nancy Scherich (UC Santa Barbara)

Friday 17 August, 12-1pm, Place: Carslaw 375

Discrete Representations of the Braid Groups

Many well known representations of the braid groups are parameterized. Using a little algebraic number theory, I will show how to carefully choose evaluations of the parameter so that the image is a discrete group, and sometimes lands in a lattice! It is exciting to see how algebraic techniques give rise to more geometric results.