This week we have Kate Petersen speaking. Her title and abstract are below.

Title: Symmetries and surface detection for SL(2, C) character varieties of 3-manifolds Speaker: Kathleen Petersen, Florida State University Date: Oct 21, 2020 Time: 3:45 PM Room: https://meet.google.com/frv-bgow-byi Abstract: Culler, Morgan, and Shalen pioneered the detection essential surfaces in 3- manifolds through SL(2, C) character varieties. I’ll review these character varieties and detection, then discuss how symmetries of the 3-manifold affect this detection before concluding with some examples. This is joint work with Jay Leach.

______________________

Neil R. Hoffman Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics 523 Math Science Building Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078-1058 405-744-7791 http://math.okstate.edu/people/nhoffman