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Components of Hurwitz spaces
Geometry/Topology| Speaker: | Brian Osserman, UC Davis |
| Location: | 1147 MSB |
| Start time: | Wed, Feb 6 2008, 4:10PM |
Description
Hurwitz studied branched covers of the Riemann sphere, which can be
described equivalently in either geometric or group-theoretic terms.
Moduli spaces of such covers are now known as Hurwitz spaces, and a
fundamental question has been to understand the connected components
of Hurwitz spaces. This question has fundamental applications in
algebraic geometry and number theory. I will discuss some recent
work on the topic, as well as directions for further research.