Joint with Differential Geometry Seminar.

The Jones polynomial is an invariant of knots in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Following a proposal of Witten, it was extended to knots in 3-manifolds by Reshetikhin--Turaev using quantum groups.

Khovanov homology is a categorification of the Jones polynomial of a knot in $\mathbb{R}^3$, analogously to how ordinary homology is a categorification of the Euler characteristic of a space. It is a major open problem to extend Khovanov homology to knots in 3-manifolds.

In this talk, I will explain forthcoming work towards solving this problem, joint with Leon Liu, David Reutter, Catharina Stroppel, and Paul Wedrich. Roughly speaking, our contribution amounts to the first instance of a braiding on 2-representations of a categorified quantum group. More precisely, we construct a braided $(\infty,2)$-category that simultaneously incorporates all of Rouquier's braid group actions on Hecke categories in type A, articulating a novel compatibility among them.

In the 13th of his list of mathematical problems, Hilbert conjectured that the general degree 7 polynomial cannot be solved using only arithmeticoperations and algebraic functions of 2 or fewer variables. In the language of resolvent degree, Hilbert conjectures that RD(S_7) = 3. Reichstein has recently extended the notion of resolvent degree to general algebraic groups G. In this context, a conjecture of Tits asserts that RD(G) = 1 for any connected complex linear algebraic group. Reichstein proves unconditionally that RD(G)\le 5 for such G, and he offers this as possible evidence against Hilbert's conjecture. The goal of this talk is to offer analogous evidence *for* Hilbert's conjecture by extending Reichstein's definition to a notion of resolvent degree for arithmetic groups, variations of Hodge structure, and related moduli problems. We then use geometric techniques to give examples of problems F with RD(F) arbitrarily large. From this perspective, one can paraphrase Hilbert's 13th as asking which is a finite group more like: a connected complex linear algebraic group or an arithmetic lattice? This is joint work with Benson Farb and Mark Kisin.

A joint Geometry and Analysis seminar.

Abstract: The k-Ricci curvature interpolates between the Ricci curvature and holomorphic sectional curvature. For the positive case, a recent result asserts that the compact Kaehler manifolds with positive k-Ricci are  projective and rationally connected. This generalizes the previous results of Campana, Kollar-Miyaoka-Mori for the Fano case and the Heirer-Wong and Yang for holomorphic sectional curvature case. For the negative case, all compact Kaehler manifolds with negative k-Ricci admit a Kaehler-Einstein metric with negative scalar curvature. I shall explain how to get this result by solving a complex Monge-Ampere equation.