Instructor: Mladen Bestvina
Office: JWB 210
Office hours: By appointment
Meets: TTh 10:45-12:05 in JWB 208
The topics class Math 7853 this
spring will be on "curve counting". I
will follow the book
Erlandsson-Souto: Mirzakhani's curve counting and geodesic
currents
The book presents a proof of (a generalization of) a
theorem of Maryam
Mirzakhani that gives an asymptotic count of the number of
curves on a
surface in the same mapping class group orbit as a given
curve. We'll
spend a fair bit of time on the background, most of it from
the
Thurston school of surface geometry: measured laminations,
currents, train
tracks. For a few weeks I'll pretend to be Jon Chaika and talk
about ergodic theory.
Prerequisites: You should be comfortable with measure theory
as in
Math 6210 and with the basic hyperbolic geometry.
You can contact me by email.
Required
statements:
Safety on campus