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SUMMARY:Homeomorphisms of contractible manifolds  - Oscar Randal-Williams 
 (Cambridge)
DTSTART:20240522T150000Z
DTEND:20240522T160000Z
UID:TALK215401@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Oscar Randal-Williams
DESCRIPTION:A century ago\, J. W. Alexander showed that the space of homeo
 morphisms of a disc (which are the identity near the boundary) is contract
 ible\, using an explicit radial deformation now known as the "Alexander tr
 ick". I will explain recent joint work with Soren Galatius which shows tha
 t the same conclusion holds for all compact contractible manifolds of dime
 nsion at least 6. In this generality there can be no such explicit deforma
 tion\, and the question must be approached more obliquely. Along the way\,
  I will explain a new result on spaces of smooth embeddings of one-sided h
 -cobordisms into other manifolds.
LOCATION:MR13
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