EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Hidden symmetry
Speaker: Professor Benson Farb
Speaker Info: University of Chicago
Brief Description:
Special Note:
Abstract:

Which contractible Riemannian manifolds (e.g. R^n with any metric) cover both compact and noncompact, complete finite volume manifolds? Which Riemannian products $X\times Y$ cover compact nonproducts? When do complex manifolds $M$ with $c_1(M)<0$ holomorphically split as a product of a locally symmetric manifold and a ``rigid'' manifold? What are the isometries of Teichmuller space?

These seemingly unrelated questions turn out to be instances of a single underlying phenomenon, allowing for complete answers to each question. The goal of this talk will be to explain some of the ideas behind this, which is joint work with Shmuel Weinberger.