9/27/2007

Slaven Jabuka
University of Nevada

Cobordance, concordance and 3-stranded pretzel knots

The cobordism groups of integral and rational homology 3-spheres and the concordance group of knots in the 3-sphere, are important, yet rather poorly understood objects in low dimensional topology. The talk will discuss various relationships between these three groups, focus on some open questions and elucidate how answers pertaining to one of the groups lead to a better understanding of the others.

Special attention will be heeded to the class of three-stranded pretzel knots and their branched covers where some of the above questions can be completely answered.

The talk is based on joint work with Josh Greene.