MS Seminar (Mathematics - String Theory)

Speaker: Joseph Maher (visiting Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Title: Generic elements of the mapping class group.
Date (JST): Thu, Jun 04, 2009, 15:30 - 17:00
Place: Seminar Room at IPMU Prefab. B
Abstract: The mapping class group of a surface is the group of all maps from a surface to itself, and occurs naturally in a variety of areas of mathematics. We discuss what it might mean for a group element to be generic, and show that the irreducible elements of the mapping class group are generic for certain definitions of generic.
This uses recent results on the large scale geometry of the mapping class group, and has applications to 3-manifolds.