Modul:   MAT789  Quantum Topology Seminar

Self-linking number and integral invariants of 3-folds

Talk by Dr. Ivan Guillermo Contreras Palacios

Date: 05.04.11  Time: 15.00 - 17.00  Room: Y27H28

There exists a way to extend the Gauss formula for the linking number of two curves in the space to the case of the intersection of a knot with itself but it turns out that the result is not a knot invariant. The idea of the talk is to introduce certain procedure (integrated torsion) to understand this number as an invariant and to discuss a general setup of integral invariants in 3-manifolds. Based on the papers "On the self-linking of knots" by R.Bott and C.Taubes and "Integral invariants of 3-manifolds" by R.Bott and A.Cattaneo: Bott-Taubes, Bott-Cattaneo.