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Stabilizations of Heegaard Splittings
Geometry/Topology| Speaker: | Joel Hass, UC Davis |
| Location: | 1147 MSB |
| Start time: | Wed, Jan 23 2008, 4:10PM |
Description
I will report on joint work with Abby Thompson and Bill Thurston in
which we show that for certain pairs of genus g Heegaard splittings of a
3-manifold, no fewer than g stabilizations are required before they become
equivalent. All previously known examples became equivalent after one
stabilization. The proof uses a deformation of families of surfaces to
harmonic maps.