Student Combinatorics and Algebra Seminar
Thursday, September 12, 2019
4:40pm on Zoom



An introduction to braid groups

Chris Fraser

UMN


Abstract

We will give an introductory talk on the braid group. This group can be thought of in (at least) three ways: algebraically (via a presentation by generators and relations) or geometrically (as the fundamental group of a certain manifold, or as the mapping class group of a certain surface). These three different perspectives generalize in three different ways. Time permitting, I will discuss the word problem for braid groups, some relations between braids and knot theory, and some aspects of the representation theory of the braid group.