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Graduate Student Geometry-Topology Seminar

Friday, April 12, 2024 - 2:00pm

Xingyu Meng

UPenn

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4C2

Seiberg-Witten theory was invented in 1994 shortly after the discovery of Donaldson invariants. The Seiberg-Witten theory admits a U(1) symmetry, which makes them far more computable than the SU(2)-symmetric Donaldson theory. In this talk, we will briefly introduce the background of spin geometry and Dirac operators, before diving into the Seiberg-Witten moduli and defining the Seiberg-Witten invariants. We start and conclude with a proof of the Thom conjecture using Seiberg-Witten theory. This application shows the power of Seiberg-Witten theory in studying the geometry and topology of 4-manifolds.