A categorified view of the Alexander invariant
Liam Watson
University of Glasgow
https://personal.math.ubc.ca/~liam/
Date(s) : 21/11/2014 iCal
9h30 - 10h30
Alexander invariants are classical objects in low-dimensional topology stemming from a natural module structure on the homology of the universal abelian cover. This is the natural setting in which to define the Alexander polynomial of a knot, for example, and given that this polynomial arises as graded Euler characteristic in knot Floer homology, it is natural to ask if there is a Floer-theoretic counterpart to the Alexander invariant. There is: This talk will describe a TQFT due to Donaldson, explain how it is categorified by bordered Heegaard Floer homology, and from this place the Alexander invariant in a Heegaard Floer setting. This is joint work with Jen Hom and The Lidman.
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