# Seminars & Events for Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

September 18, 2015
2:00pm - 3:00pm
##### Fixed-point expressions for the Fukaya endomorphism algebra of RP^{2m} and higher genus open invariants
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

The Atiyah-Bott localization formula has become a valuable tool for computation of symplectic invariants given in terms of integrals on the moduli spaces of holomorphic stable maps.

Speaker: Amitai Zernik , Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Location:
Fine Hall 322
October 2, 2015
2:00pm - 3:00pm
##### Lagrangian cobordism: what we know and what is it good for
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

(Joint seminar with Columbia.)  I will describe how the notion of Lagrangian cobordism, introduced by Arnold in 1980, offers a systematic perspective on the study of Lagrangian topology.  There are three aspects that will be emphasized: the relations with the triangulated structure of the derived Fukaya category, the connection to Seidel’s representation, cobordism based extensions of the Hofer norm. The talk is based mainly on joint work with Paul Biran (ETH).

Speaker: Octav Cornea, University of Montreal
Location:
IAS Room S-101
October 2, 2015
3:30pm - 4:30pm
##### Non-trivial Hamiltonian fibrations via K-theory quantization
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

We produce examples of non-trivial Hamiltonian fibrations that are not detected by previous methods (the characteristic classes of Reznikov for example), and improve theorems of Reznikov and Spacil on cohomology-surjectivity to the level of classifying spaces. Joint work with Yasha Savelyev.

Speaker: Egor Shelukhin, IAS
Location:
IAS Room S-101
October 9, 2015
1:45pm - 2:45pm
##### Real Gromov-Witten theory in all genera
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

We construct positive-genus analogues of Welschinger's invariants for many real symplectic manifolds, including the odd-dimensional projective spaces and the quintic threefold. Our approach to the orientability problem is based entirely on the topology of real bundle pairs over symmetric surfaces. This allows us to endow the uncompactified moduli spaces of real maps from symmetric surfaces of all topological types with natural orientations and to verify that they extend across the codimension-one boundaries of these spaces. In reasonably regular cases, these invariants can be used to obtain lower bounds for counts of real curves of arbitrary genus. Joint work with A. Zinger.

Speaker: Penka Georgieva, Jussieu
Location:
Fine Hall 322
October 16, 2015
3:00pm - 4:00pm
##### 3d mirror symmetry and symplectic duality
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Please note special location (Fine 224) and time (3:00-4:00).   In recent work of Braden, Licata, Proudfoot, and Webster, a "symplectic duality" was described between pairs of module categories O(M), O(M') associated to certain pairs of complex symplectic manifolds (M, M'). The duality generalizes the Koszul duality of Beilinson-Ginzburg-Soergel for categories of modules associated to flag varieties. I will discuss how symplectic duality can be obtained from the physics of boundary conditions in three-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories, and some new structure that arises from these boundary conditions. (Joint work with M. Bullimore, D. Gaiotto, & J. Hilburn.)

Speaker: Tudor Dimofte , Perimeter Institute
Location:
Fine Hall 224
October 23, 2015
2:00pm - 3:00pm
##### Dehn twists exact sequences through Lagrangian cobordism
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

In this talk we first introduce a new "singularity-free" approach to the proof of Seidel's long exact sequence, including the fixed-point version. This conveniently generalizes to Dehn twists along Lagrangian submanifolds which are rank one symmetric spaces and their covers, including RP^n and CP^n, matching a mirror prediction due to Huybrechts and Thomas. The idea of the proof can be interpreted as a "mirror" of the construction in algebraic geometry, realized by a new surgery and cobordism construction.  This is a joint work with Cheuk-Yu Mak.

Speaker: Weiwei Wu , University of Montreal
Location:
IAS Room S-101
October 30, 2015
10:15am - 11:15am
##### Floer homology for translated points
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

PLEASE NOTE:  THIS SEMINAR WILL BE HELD AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN ROOM MATH 520.   A point q in a contact manifold (M,ξ) is said to be a translated point of a contactomorphism ϕ, with respect to a contact form α for ξ, if it is a "fixed point modulo the Reeb flow", i.e. if q and ϕ(q) are in the same Reeb orbit and ϕ preserves α at q. Translated points are key objects to look at when studying contact rigidity phenomena such as contact non-squeezing, orderability of contact manifolds and existence of bi-invariant metrics and quasimorphisms on the contactomorphism group. Based on the notion of translated points, in 2011 I proposed a contact analogue of the Arnold conjecture on fixed points of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms.

Speaker: Margherita Sandon , Universite de Strasbourg
October 30, 2015
1:00pm - 2:00pm
##### Functors and relations from Fukaya categories of LG models
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

PLEASE NOTE:  THIS SEMINAR WILL BE HELD AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN ROOM MATH 407. The Fukaya category of a Landau-Ginzburg (LG) model W: E --> C, denoted F(E,W), enlarges the Fukaya category of E to include certain non-compact Lagrangians determined by W (for instance, Lefschetz fibrations and their thimbles). I will describe natural functors associated to the Fukaya categories of (E,W) and the general fibre M, and introduce a new Floer homology ring for (E,W). Using these, I will explain two new results: (a) a generation criterion for F(E,W), in the sense of Abouzaid/AFOOO, and (b) exact triangles of functors, one each in F(E,W) and F(M). First applications include stability and generation results for Fukaya categories and a new proof of exact sequences for fibered twists.

Speaker: Sheel Ganatra, Stanford University
November 6, 2015
2:00pm - 3:00pm
##### Negative and positive results in the intersection between systolic and symplectic geometry
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

How small is the smallest period of a closed trajectory of a Reeb flow? In this talk I will present recent answers to instances of this question in three-dimensions which reveal connections between systolic and symplectic geometry. I will present results both of a positive and of a negative nature. Namely, in some situations there are sharp bounds for the systolic ratio, which is defined as the ratio between the square of the smallest period and the contact volume, while in other situations the systolic ratio is unbounded. Our results confirm a conjecture of Babenko and Balacheff and disprove a conjecture of Hutchings. All this is joint work with Abbondandolo, Bramham and Salomão.

Speaker: Umberto Hryniewicz , Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Location:
IAS Room S-101
November 13, 2015
2:00pm - 3:00pm
##### Legendrian Fronts in Contact Topology
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

In this talk we focus on Legendrian presentations of Weinstein manifolds; in particular, we discuss loose Legendrian embeddings and their absolute analogues, flexible Weinstein manifolds and overtwisted contact structures. The required definitions and necessary results will be provided. In the first part, we present a dictionary between Legendrian fronts and adapted open books decompositions. In the second part, we explore applications to Weinstein cobordisms and biLefschetz fibrations with Am–Milnor fibres. This is joint work with E. Murphy.

Speaker: Roger Casals, MIT
Location:
IAS Room S-101
November 20, 2015
2:30pm - 3:30pm
##### Low-area Floer theory and non-displaceability
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Please note change of time:  2:30-3:30.   I will introduce a "low-area" version of Floer cohomology of a non-monotone Lagrangian submanifold and prove that a continuous family of Lagrangian tori in CP2, whose Floer cohomology in the usual sense vanishes, is Hamiltonian non-displaceable from the monotone Clifford torus. Joint work with Renato Vianna.

Speaker: Dmitry Tonkonog , Cambridge University
Location:
Fine Hall 322
December 4, 2015
1:45pm - 2:45pm
##### Point-like bounding chains in open Gromov-Witten theory
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Over a decade ago Welschinger defined invariants of real symplectic manifolds of complex dimensions 2 and 3, which count $J$-holomorphic disks with boundary and interior point constraints. Since then, the problem of extending the definition to higher dimensions has attracted much attention. We generalize Welschinger's invariants with boundary and interior constraints to higher odd dimensions using the language of $A_\infty$-algebras and bounding chains. The bounding chains play the role of boundary point constraints. The geometric structure of our invariants is expressed algebraically in a version of the open WDVV equations. These equations give rise to recursive formulae which allow the computation of all invariants for $\mathbb{C}P^n$.  This is joint work with Jake Solomon.

Speaker: Sara Tukachinsky, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Location:
Fine Hall 322
December 18, 2015
2:00pm - 3:00pm
##### Absolute vs. Relative Gromov-Witten invariants
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

We compare absolute and relative Gromov-Witten invariants with the basic contact vector for very positive divisors. For such divisors, one might expect that these invariants are the same up to a natural multiple. We show that this is indeed the case outside of a narrow range of the dimension of the target and the genus of the domain. We provide explicit examples to show that these invariants are generally different inside of this range. This is joint work with A. Zinger.

Speaker: Mohammad Tehrani , Simons Center
Location:
IAS Room S-101
January 21, 2016
10:30am - 11:30am
##### From symplectic geometry to combinatorics and back
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

A much studied combinatorial object associated to a polytope is its "Ehrhart function".  This is typically studied for integral or rational polytopes.  The first part of the talk will be about joint work with Li and Stanley extending this theory to certain irrational polytopes; the idea for this was inspired by work of McDuff and Schlenk on symplectic embeddings of four-dimensional ellipsoids.  In the second part of the talk, I will introduce recent joint work with Holm, Mandini, and Pires, which aims to apply this "irrational" Ehrhart theory to study embeddings of ellipsoids into four-dimensional symplectic toric manifolds.

Speaker: Dan Cristofaro-Gardiner , Harvard University
Location:
IAS Room S-101
February 4, 2016
10:30am - 11:30am
##### Floer theory revisited
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

I will describe a formalism for (Lagrangian) Floer theory wherein the output is not a deformation of the cohomology ring, but of the Pontryagin algebra of based loops, or of the analogous algebra of based discs (with boundary on the Lagrangian). I will explain the consequences of quantum cohomology, and the expected applications of this theory.

Speaker: Mohammed Abouzaid , Columbia University
Location:
IAS Room S-101
February 11, 2016
10:40am - 11:40am
##### Restrictions on the fundamental group of some Lagrangian cobordisms.
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

In this talk we will describe two methods which shows that, under some rigidity assumptions on the involved Legendrian submanifolds, a Lagrangian cobordism is simply connected. The first one uses the functoriality of the fundamental class in Legendrian contact homology with twisted coefficients. The second uses a L^2-completion of the Floer complex associated to the cobordism. This is joint work with G. Dimitroglou Rizell, P. Ghiggini and R. Golovko.

Speaker: Baptiste Chantraine , Nantes
Location:
IAS Room S-101
February 11, 2016
1:00pm - 2:00pm
##### Toward a contact Fukaya category
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Please note special time.  I will describe some work in progress (maybe more accurately, wild speculation) regarding a version of the derived Fukaya category for contact 1-jet spaces J^1(X). This category is built from Legendrian submanifolds equipped with augmentations, and the full subcategory corresponding to a fixed Legendrian submanifold \Lambda is the augmentation category Aug(\Lambda), which I will attempt to review. The derived Fukaya category is generated by unknots, with the corollary that all augmentations come from unknot fillings''. I will also describe a potential application to proving that augmentations = sheaves''. This is work in progress with Tobias Ekholm and Vivek Shende, building on joint work with Dan Rutherford, Vivek Shende, Steven Sivek, and Eric Zaslow.

Speaker: Lenny Ng , Duke University
Location:
IAS Room S-101
February 11, 2016
2:30pm - 3:30pm
##### A frontal view on Lefschetz fibrations II
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Please note special time.    In this series of two talks we will discuss Weinstein structures endowed with a Lefschetz fibration in terms of the Legendrian front projection. The main focus is on Weinstein manifolds which admit a Weinstein Lefschetz fibration with an $A_k$--fibre; this provides a large class of Weinstein structures ranging from flexible Weinstein manifolds to rich rigid examples. In particular, we will describe the computation of their symplectic homologies and discuss its implications to Legendrian submanifolds and their Lagrangian fillings.

Speaker: Roger Casals , MIT
Location:
IAS Room S-101
February 12, 2016
10:40am - 11:40am
##### Satellite operations and Legendrian knot theory
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Please note special day and time.    Satellite operations are a common way to create interesting knot types in the smooth category. It starts with a knot K, called the companion knot, in some manifold M and another knot P, called the pattern, in S^1\times D^2 and then creates a third knot P(K), called the satellite knot, as the image of P when S^1\times D^2 is identified with a neighborhood of K. In this talk we will discuss the relation between Legendrian knots representing K, P, and P(K). Sometimes the classification of Legendrian representatives for K and P yields a classification for P(K), but other times it does not. We will discuss why this happens and a general framework for studying Legendrian Satellites.

Speaker: John Etnyre , Georgia Tech
Location:
IAS Room S-101
February 12, 2016
1:00pm - 2:00pm
##### A Quantitative Look at Lagrangian Cobordisms
###### Joint PU/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar

Please note special day and time.   Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds arise in Relative Symplectic Field Theory. In recent years, there has been much progress on answering qualitative questions such as: For a fixed pair of Legendrians, does there exist a Lagrangian cobordism?  I will address two quantitative questions about Lagrangian cobordisms:  For a fixed pair of Legendrians, what is the minimal “length” of a Lagrangian cobordism?  What is the relative Gromov width of a Lagrangian cobordism?

Speaker: Lisa Traynor , Bryn Mawr
Location:
IAS Room S-101