Geometric Analysis and Topology Seminar

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Telescopic Actions

Speaker: Anton Petrunin, Penn State University

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 202

Date: Friday, March 4, 2011, 11 a.m.

Synopsis:

A group action H on X is called "telescopic" if for any finitely presented group G, there exists a subgroup H' in H such that G is isomorphic to the fundamental group of X/H'. We construct few examples of telescopic actions. As an application we give an alternative proof of Taubes' theorem: "For every finitely presented group G there exists a smooth compact complex 3-manifold with fundamental group isomorphic to G." This is joint work with Dmitri Panov.