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Caltech

Geometry and Topology Seminar

Friday, February 5, 2021
3:00pm to 4:00pm
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Online Event
Harmonic branched coverings and uniformization of CAT(k) spheres
Christine Breiner, Mathematics Department, Fordham University,

Consider a metric space (S,d) with an upper curvature bound in the sense of Alexandrov (i.e. via triangle comparison). We show that if (S,d) is homeomorphically equivalent to the 2-sphere S^2, then it is conformally equivalent to S^2. The method of proof is through harmonic maps, and we show that the conformal equivalence is achieved by an almost conformal harmonic map. The proof relies on the analysis of the local behavior of harmonic maps between surfaces, and the key step is to show that an almost conformal harmonic map from a compact surface onto a surface with an upper curvature bound is a branched covering. This work is joint with Chikako Mese.

For more information, please contact Math Department by phone at 626-395-4335 or by email at [email protected] or visit https://sites.google.com/site/caltechgtseminar/home.