Title: Divergence of geodesics
Speaker: Moon Duchin, Tufts University
Date: Thursday, March 28, 2013
Time: 11:30pm – 12:30pm
Place: Lecture Hall 102, Simons Center
Abstract: The divergence of geodesics measures how fast geodesics spread apart, and with a bit of care can be defined to produce a large-scale geometric statistic related to curvature. I’ll define divergence and higher-dimensional analogs, emphasizing examples. This gives an interesting family of geometric invariants “at infinity.” I’ll discuss results on divergence in settings of interest for geometric topologists and geometric group theorists: mapping class groups, Teichmuller space, and right-angled Artin groups.