EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Rigidity of groups of diffeomorphisms
Speaker: Sebastian Hurtado-Salazar
Speaker Info:
Brief Description:
Special Note:
Abstract:

Let Diff_0(M) be the group of diffeomorphisms isotopic to the identity of a closed manifold M. I'll talk about the structure of Diff_0(M) as an abstract group.

For example, Diff_0(M) is a simple group. Also, if Diff_0(M) and Diff_0(N) are isomorphic as abstract groups then M and N are diffeomorphic. I'll talk about these old theorems, about the concept of distortion in geometric group theory and about how this concept helps to show that any homomorphism P : Diff_0(M) --->DIff_0(N) is in fact continuous.