JUNE 13-17, 2011 CITY UNIVERSITY of NEW YORK GRADUATE CENTER
Principal Lecturer: Daniel T. Wise Full Professor Department of Mathematics and Statistics McGill University
The lectures of Professor Wise will treat a body of interrelated techniques and theorems in geometric group theory that are aimed at resolving certain long-standing open problems on groups arising in combinatorial group theory and 3-manifold topology. This work has matured during the past few years to a powerful and coherent theory that will reorient much of the research in this area. Recent achievements include a proof of Baumslag's 1967 conjecture that one-relator group with torsion are residually finite, a proof that Haken hyperbolic 3-manifolds are virtually fibered (unexpectedly confirming a conjecture of Thurston's from the 1980's), and the stunning realization that a large swath of the finitely presented groups arising in geometric group theory are actually virtually subgroups of right-angled Artin groups. It is now time to take stock of the developments here, and educate the next generation of researchers entering this area. Indeed, this subject has proven to be extremely fertile terrain and new researchers are certain to take things to the next level, both in simplifying and extending the reach of some of the proofs, and in striving for novel applications in neighboring fields.
This conference will address a broad collection of students and young researchers, including both those with interest in 3-manifold topology and geometric group theory. Having the conference at the City University of New York Graduate Center will also contribute to the diversity of the participants. CUNY is the largest urban university in the United States and the Graduate Center is its central Ph.D. granting institution. A majority of CUNY students are self-identified as African-American or Hispanic and approximately 60% are female.
" was an enormous success, as will hopefully come across in the summary below. Over the past 15 years Daniel Wise and his collaborators have been developing a body of interrelated techniques and theorems in geometric group theory that are aimed at resolving certain long-standing open problems on groups arising in combinatorial group theory and 3-manifold topology. This work has matured during the past few years to a powerful and coherent theory that will reorient much of the research in this area. It is the background and then these recent development that formed the subject for his 10 lecture series, ranging from the basic tools to applications and discussion of open problems. The theory that he lectured on has culminated in several recent achievements and the lectures he gave were centered around his recent proof that Haken hyperbolic 3-manifolds are virtually fibered (unexpectedly confirming a conjecture of Thurston's from the 1980's), and the stunning realization that a large swath of the finitely presented groups arising in geometric group theory are actually virtually subgroups of right-angled Artin groups. The conference provided a venue for many students and postdocs (and a number of prominent more senior researchers) in geometric group theory and related fields to spend an intense week learning about the leading edge of results in the field. Feedback from participants, and the upsurge in research in these topics, testify to the success of the conference.
