[Binghamton Geometry/Topology Seminar] March 19

[Marco Varisco]

BINGHAMTON GEOMETRY/TOPOLOGY SEMINAR
  http://www.math.binghamton.edu/dept/topsem/

Date:  Thursday, March 19, 2009

Time:  2:50 pm

Place:  Library North 2205
  (followed by coffee/tea in the Anderson Reading Room)

Speaker:  Craig Guilbault (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Title:  End behavior of manifolds and complexes admitting group actions

Abstract:  In a well-known paper from 1992, D. Wright showed that
certain contractible open manifolds admit no nontrivial proper free
group actions and thus do not occur as universal covers of any other
manifolds. That paper also includes interesting results that apply to
non-manifolds. We will discuss an alternative approach to Wright's
work which leads to a new proof of his manifold theorem and a
strengthening of his non-manifold results. This talk will cover joint
work with Ross Geoghegan.