Event

Talk
A sketch of symplectic field theory and applications
Prof. Dr. Chris Wendl
24 May 2016, 15:30 – 16:30
IRIS Haus R2.07, HU Berlin

Symplectic field theory (SFT) was introduced by Eliashberg-Givental-Hofer in 2000 as a TQFT-type framework for defining invariants of symplectic and contact manifolds by counting psequdoholomorphic curves. Special cases of SFT in certain settings include the Gromov-Witten invariants and Floer homology of closed symplectic manifolds, as well as various analogues of these in contact geometry. In this talk, I will give a general introduction for non-specialists, including some basic notions about contact manifolds, symplectic cobordisms and pseudoholomorphic curves, the algebraic structure of SFT, and some applications to the problem of symplectic fillability (including joint work with Janko Latschev).