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Back to Departmental Colloquium: Spring 2016

Departmental Colloquium


Date: Thursday, Mar 24, 2016

Time: 4:00PM

Location: LCB 219


Dick Canary

University of Michigan

Title

Pressure metrics for higher Teichmuller spaces

Abstract

Higher Teichmuller theory studies deformation spaces of ``geometric’’ representations into higher rank Lie groups. One goal is to develop analogues of the rich geometric theory of Teichmuller spaces of Riemann surfaces. We will begin by discussing examples of higher Teichmuller spaces and attempt to give some flavor of the general theory. In the second half of the talk we will discuss a pressure metric on higher Teichmuller spaces which is a generalization of the classical Weil-Petersson metric on Teichmuller space. Its definition is dynamical in nature and is inspired by Thurston’s reformulation of the Weil-Petersson metric and subsequent work by Wolpert, Bonahon, McMullen and Bridgeman. (This portion of the talk describes joint work with Bridgeman, Labourie and Sambarino.)

Representation Theory Topology

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