Embedding questions in symplectic geometry

Speaker: Dusa McDuff

Date: Fri, Nov 4, 2011

Location: PIMS, University of British Columbia

Conference: PIMS/UBC Distinguished Colloquium

Subject: Mathematics, Differential Geometry and Geometric Analysis

Class: Scientific

Abstract:

As has been known since the time of Gromov's Nonsqueezing Theorem, symplectic embedding questions lie at the heart of symplectic geometry.

In the past few years we have gained significant new insight into the question of when there is a symplectic embedding of one basic geometric shape (such as a ball or ellipsoid)into another (such as an ellipsoid or torus). After a brief introduction to symplectic geometry, this talk will describe some of this progress, with particular emphasis on results in dimension four.