Topology Seminar-Contact cosmetic surgery
Friday, May 1, 2026
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Time: Friday, 5/1, 1-2pm
Location: Rome 350
Speaker: Tanushree Shah
Title: Contact cosmetic surgery
Abstract: Surgery is a universal operation to go between 3-manifolds. The redundancy in this operation is called cosmetic surgery. Studying this redundancy has been part of Kirby's problem list (1.81A). We added an extra structure to our 3 manifolds, namely, a contact structure, and asked about redundancy for contact surgery. We demonstrate that contact cosmetic surgery is not possible for all knots except for knots 'like' the unknot (for non-slice knots). We also discuss the contact cosmetic surgeries on the unknot and make surprising observations. This is a joint work with John Etnyre.
Speaker Bio: Tanushree is a pos-doctoral fellow at Chennai Mathematical Institute, India. Previously, she was a ESI research fellow in Vienna, Austria with Vera Vertesi. Before that, she was a visiting researcher at Alfred Renyi Institute in Budapest, mentored by Andras Stipsicz. She received her PhD from the University of Glasgow, working on contact topology under the guidance of Ana Lecuona, Andy Wand and Brendan Owens.
Title: Contact cosmetic surgery
Abstract: Surgery is a universal operation to go between 3-manifolds. The redundancy in this operation is called cosmetic surgery. Studying this redundancy has been part of Kirby's problem list (1.81A). We added an extra structure to our 3 manifolds, namely, a contact structure, and asked about redundancy for contact surgery. We demonstrate that contact cosmetic surgery is not possible for all knots except for knots 'like' the unknot (for non-slice knots). We also discuss the contact cosmetic surgeries on the unknot and make surprising observations. This is a joint work with John Etnyre.
Speaker Bio: Tanushree is a pos-doctoral fellow at Chennai Mathematical Institute, India. Previously, she was a ESI research fellow in Vienna, Austria with Vera Vertesi. Before that, she was a visiting researcher at Alfred Renyi Institute in Budapest, mentored by Andras Stipsicz. She received her PhD from the University of Glasgow, working on contact topology under the guidance of Ana Lecuona, Andy Wand and Brendan Owens.