Speaker: Emanuele Zappala
Time: 2:00pm, Thursday, June 4
Abstract: In this talk I will give a brief introduction to knot theory and the notion of knot invariant. Next I will describe the process of algebraization of knot theory which naturally gives Yang-Baxter operators, Yetter-Drinfeld modules and racks/quandles etc. After recalling the definition of cohomology of racks, I will proceed to show how to construct an invariant of links and knotted surfaces from cocycles. I will therefore explain some recent joint works with M. Elhamdadi and M. Saito relating self-distributivity of higher arity structures and invariants of framed links, with a (categorical) perspective on how to realize them as quantum invariants.
Zoom links: click me.
Slides: google drive