Topology and Geometric Group Theory Seminar

John Wiltshire-GordonUWisc
Configuration space of a product

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 - 1:30pm
Malott 206

Write Conf(n,X) for the space of injections {1,...,n} -----> X. For
example, the space Conf(n, R) is homotopy equivalent to a discrete
space with cardinality n!. In contrast, the space Conf(n, R x R)
seems much more interesting and complicated. In this talk, we explain
how to compute the homotopy type of Conf(n, X x Y) using only
information about configurations in X and Y individually. We will do
examples interactively on my laptop, and give applications.