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SUMMARY:Stein fillings and SU(2) representations - John Baldwin (Boston Co
 llege)
DTSTART:20170203T140000Z
DTEND:20170203T150000Z
UID:TALK70598@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:INI IT
DESCRIPTION:<span>         Co-author: Steven Sivek 		(Imperial College)   
      <br></span><span><br>I&#39\;ll describe recent work with Sivek in whi
 ch we prove that if a  3-manifold Y admits a Stein filling which is not a 
 homology ball then  its fundamental group admits a nontrivial SU(2) repres
 entation. Beyond  establishing a new connection between contact geometry a
 nd the  fundamental group\, this result allows us to deduce the existence 
 of  nontrivial representations where previously existing methods do not  a
 ppear to suffice. Our proof makes use of a fairly new invariant of  contac
 t 3-manifolds which Sivek and I defined in the context of  instanton Floer
  homology.</span>
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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