Title: Categorified Invariants and Braid Conjugacy
Program: Symplectic and Contact Geometry and Connections to Low-Dimensional Topology
Speaker: Elisenda Grigsby, Boston College
Date: Thursday, September 13, 2012
Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Place: Seminar Room 313, Simons Center
Abstract: An “old” construction of Khovanov-Seidel associates to every braid a (homotopy equivalence class of) dg bimodules over an algebra. Their braid invariant is “faithful”–i.e., agrees on two braids iff the braids are the same. In this talk, I will describe a relationship between the Khovanov-Seidel braid invariant and the “sutured annular Khovanov homology” of the braid closure in the solid torus. I will also mention what this and some other categorified invariants can and cannot tell us about braid conjugacy classes. Parts of this talk describe joint work with D. Auroux and S. Wehrli, and other parts describe joint work with J. Baldwin.
[box, type=”download”]Watch the video.[/box]