Mathematics Colloquium
Michael Wolf
Georgia Tech
Title: Limits of Geometric Structures on Surfaces
Date: Friday, October 14, 2022
Place and Time: LOV 101, 3:05-3:55 pm
Abstract.
The study of surfaces lies at the crossroads of many subjects, and this reflects in there being a variety of geometries -- hyperbolic, complex projective, and affine spherical, among others -- that a surface can admit. We discuss how these moduli spaces of geometric structures may by parametrized by holomorphic objects associated to variational problems and then focus on describing the singular objects -- and variational problems for those -- that emerge when we allow the geometric surfaces to degenerate. Along the way, we meet a number of constructions central to this subject.