Character Varieties in the Geometry and Topology of Low-dimensional Manifolds (10w5094)

The Banff International Research Station will host the "Character Varieties in the Geometry and Topology of Low-dimensional Manifolds" workshop from April 25 to 30, 2010.

The study of spaces that locally look like Euclidean 3-space has been a central theme of mathematical research for many years. Recently, has seen tremendous leaps in our understanding of these spaces; for example Perelman's
solution to the Poincare Conjecture. A key feature of recent developments has been the role of geometry.

This workshop intends to bring together researchers that study certain algebraic objects (the so called Character Variety) associated to these spaces
and which have been important in many recent developments in low-dimensional topology and geometry. This would be the first time a workshop or conference dedicated to this study would have been held.

The Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS) is a collaborative Canada-US-Mexico venture that provides an environment for creative interaction as well as the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and methods within the Mathematical Sciences, with related disciplines and with industry. The research station is located at The Banff Centre in Alberta and is supported by Canada's Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Alberta's Advanced Education and Technology, and Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologí­a (CONACYT).