Back to Departmental Colloquium: Spring 2012
Departmental Colloquium
Date: Tuesday, Apr 10, 2012
Time: 4:15PM
Location: JWB 335
Cancelled
Howard Masur
University of Chicago
Title |
Billiards in polygons, and the SL(2,R) action on moduli spaces of translation surfaces |
Abstract |
An appealing example of a dynamical system is billiards in a polygon. The most studied examples are when the vertex angles are rational multiples of pi. By an unfolding procedure the billiard flow gives rise to a straight line flow on what is called a translation surface. It turns out that the dynamics of the flow on an individual surface is intimately related to the study of the orbit of the surface under the action of the group SL(2,R) on the moduli space of all translation surfaces. I will survey some of the major developments in this subject. April 12: CANCELLED |