Colloquium – Talk by Dr. Jennifer Hom: February 19th, 2026
February 19, 2026 (Thursday), 4:10 pm
Dr. Jennifer Hom, Georgia Institution of Technology
Progress in low-dimensional topology using Heegaard Floer homology
Low-dimensional topologists study knots, surfaces, 3-manifolds, and 4-manifolds. How many crossing changes does it take to untie a knot? Which 3-manifolds have simple descriptions? How many different 4-dimensional Euclidean spaces are there? We will give context for such questions and provide some answers using a tool called Heegaard Floer homology. This is joint work is S. Eli, C. Karakurt, T. Lidman, and J. Park.