11/16/2006

William Jaco
IAS and Oklahoma State

On triangulations of 3-manifolds

We shall discuss work (mostly joint with Hyam Rubinstein) on triangulations of 3-manifolds. This includes the construction of minimal-vertex triangulations, including layered and efficient triangulations; and operations on triangulations, including crushing triangulations along normal surfaces and blow-ups of ideal triangulations. We shall also discuss triangulated Heegaard splittings and triangulated Dehn fillings. There are many, many open questions and interesting speculation on connections of these triangulations to the geometry of 3-manifolds.