A perspective projection of a dodecahedral tessellation in H3. Four dodecahedra meet at each edge, and eight meet at each vertex, like the cubes of a cubic tessellation in E3.

Title: Morse Theory but infinite dimensional: how to trick geometers into calculus of variations

Speaker: Silvia Gangeri

Abstract: The finite-dimensional version of Morse theory allows us to look at a differentiable manifold and “slice” it into cells. What if we move to larger spaces (that are, in a sense, “infinite-dimensional”)? Can a version of Morse theory be constructed for such spaces, and if so, how do we translate the necessary notions? In this seminar, we’ll introduce Morse theory for loop spaces (the space of curves between two points of a manifold), understand what changes from classical Morse theory, and have a gentle (I hope) introduction to the calculus of variations.

 

Some snacks will be provided before and after the talk.

Go to the seminar main page.

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