Topology Seminar: Maxime Bergeron

  • Date: 10/17/2013
  • Time: 15:00
Lecturer(s):
Maxime Bergeron (UBC)
Location: 

University of British Columbia

Topic: 

The topology of nilpotent representations in reductive groups and their maximal compact subgroups

Description: 

I will discuss the topology of the space Hom(N,G) of homomorphisms from a finitely generated group N into a reductive complex linear algebraic group G (e.g. a special linear group). When K is a maximal compact subgroup of G (e.g. the subgroup of special unitary matrices), Hom(N,K) is a subspace of Hom(N,G). Although in general these topological spaces are quite different, I will show that when N is nilpotent there is a strong deformation retraction of Hom(N,G) onto Hom(N,K).

Other Information: 

Location: ESB 4133