Math 641: Around Contact Structures

Class Schedule

Date  Topic
8/23 (Mon)
Introduction to symplectic structures
8/25 (Wed) Introduction to contact structures
8/30
Reeb vector fields, normal forms, etc.
9/1
Symplectizations, interaction between contact structures and symplectic structures
9/6
Holiday (Labor Day)
9/8 Introduction to Legendrian knots (Andrei Pavelescu)
9/13
Symplectic filling
9/15
More on Legendrian knots (Andrei Pavelescu)
9/17 (Fri)
Yang-Mills equations (special lecture by Tsuyoshi Kato)
9/20
Tight vs overtwisted dichotomy; homotopy classes of 2-plane fields
9/22 Lutz-Martinet theorem
9/22 (Wed), 3:30pm
Colloquium talk by Ciprian Manolescu
9/27
Almost complex structures
9/29
Moduli spaces of J-holomorphic curves
10/4
Filling by holomorphic disks: tightness of fillable contact structures; Hofer's proof of Weinstein conjecture for overtwisted contact manifolds
10/6
Convex surfaces, Day I
10/11
Convex surfaces, Day II
10/13
Convex surfaces, Day III
10/18
Bypasses
10/20
Classification of tight contact structures on S^3 and overtwisted contact structures (Yang Huang)
10/25
More convex surface theory; sutured manifolds
10/27
Complex contact structures (Jian Wang)
11/1
Open book decompositions (Guillaume Dreyer)
11/3
Open books and the Giroux correspondence
11/8
Legendrian surgery and open books; construction of open books from surgery diagrams (Russell Avdek)
11/10
Morse homology (Andrew Williams)
11/15
Gromov compactness (Joseph Timmer)
11/17
Hamiltonian Floer homology
11/22
Legendrian contact homology (Adam Ericksen)
11/24 Introduction to Heegaard Floer homology (Taylan Bilal)
11/29
Contact invariant in Heegaard Floer homology (Yin Tian)
12/1
Introduction to embedded contact homology (Russell Avdek)



Last modified:  November 3, 2010.