Topology Seminar- The geometry of quivers

Speaker: Ben Wormleighton, UC Berkeley
Date and time: Tuesday, May 8, 5:30--6:30pm
Place: Phillips Hall 730
Title: The geometry of quivers

Abstract: A quiver is simply a directed graph, yet there are many rich and intriguing spaces that can be associated to a given quiver, widely called quiver varieties.  Just as directed graphs are widespread in mathematics, so are quiver varieties appearing in algebraic and symplectic geometry, representation theory, physics, combinatorics, ... I will summarise the general theory of quiver varieties from two points of view (algebraic and symplectic), describe some of the big victories of the theory, and discuss some new variations on this theme, especially the theory of multiplicative quiver varieties and group-valued moment maps.