CMSA Geometry and Physics Seminar: 3-manifolds, q-series, and topological strings
When: June 30, 2020
9:30 pm - 10:30 pm
Where: Virtually
Speaker: Sunghyuk Park - Caltech
\hat{Z} is an invariant of 3-manifolds valued in q-series (i.e. power series in q with integer coefficients), which has interesting modular properties. While originally from physics, this invariant has been mathematically constructed for a big class of 3-manifolds, and conjecturally it can be extended to all 3-manifolds. In this talk, I will give a gentle introduction to \hat{Z} and what is known about it, as well as highlighting some recent developments, including the use of R-matrix, generalization to higher rank, large N-limit and interpretation as open topological string partition functions.