A cabinet of curiosities of groups
Bachelor- und Master Seminar on exotic groups and their constructions.
Instructors: Petra Schwer und José Pedro Quintanilha
How wild can a group be?
This seminar is a guided tour through some of the most fascinating and unusual examples of geometric group theory.
We focus on groups with surprising constructions, exotic actions, or unexpected algebraic properties. We encounter Thompson's groups, braid groups, and groups that act on graphs, non-positively curved spaces, or fractal spaces.
We offer an introduction to a wide variety of current topics and build bridges to research. Prior knowledge of geometric group theory or topology is necessary for some of the talks.
Information
A preliminary meeting for assigning talks took place on Tuesday, April 14 at 16:15, in SR 8.
The talks will happen in four blocks throughout the semester.
The tentative schedule for each of these meetings is:
13:15 - 14:30 first talk
15:00 - 16:15 second talk
16:30 - 17:45 third talk
Please register on Müsli if you are participating in the seminar.
Schedule of talks
May 15
- Marius Streiff, RAAGs
- Shahroch Hassany, Lamplighter groups
- Yongpeng Jia, Automorphisms of free groups
May 22
- Roy Steffen, Braid groups and non-crossing partitions (NCPs)
- Arve Gruber, Out(F_n) and Outer space
July 17
- Paul Burkhardt, Thompson's group F
- Niels Thieme, Thompson's group F and its cousins
- Jonas Hofsaess, Automatic groups
July 24
- Thymoteus Kunat, Baumslag-Solitar groups
- Manuel Pfitzner, Knot groups
