Graduate Student

Event Information Virtual knots and concordance
18:10 on Thursday February 15, 2018
19:00 on Thursday February 15, 2018
BA6183, Bahen Center, 40 St. George St.
Robin Gaudreau

University of Toronto

Virtual knot theory concerns knots in thickened surfaces, with the equivalence relation generated by Reidemeister moves and (de)stabilisation of the underlying surface. Concordance is an equivalence relation that corresponds to genus zero cobordisms. This talk is based on joint work with Hans Boden and Micah Chrisman. It introduces various approaches to virtual knot cobordisms. Their multiplicity becomes a strength of the theory and is used to compute the sliceness and the 4-genus for virtual knots with fewer than 6 crossings.