Geometric Analysis and Topology Seminar

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On Normalized Ricci Flow and Smooth Structures on 4-Manifolds

Speaker: Ioana Suvaina, NYU

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 813

Date: Friday, October 24, 2008, 11 a.m.

Synopsis:

There is a strong relation between the existence of non-singular solutions for the normalized Ricci flow and the underlying smooth structure of a 4-manifold. We are going to discuss an obstruction to the existence of non-singular solutions and its applications. The main examples are connected sums of complex projective planes and complex projective planes with reversed orientation. The key ingredients in our methods are the Seiberg-Witten Theory and symplectic topology. This is joint work with M. Ishida and R. Rasdeaconu.