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The (fractional) Dehn twist coefficient and infinite-type surfaces

SEMINARS: GAUGE THEORY AND TOPOLOGY

When: December 1, 2023
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Where: Science Center 507
Address: 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Speaker: Hannah Turner - Georgia Institute of Technology

The fractional Dehn twist coefficient (FDTC) is an invariant of a self-map of a surface which is some measure of how the map twists near a boundary component of the surface. It has been studied for compact (or finite-type) surfaces; in this setting the invariant is always a fraction. I will discuss work to extend this invariant to infinite-type surfaces and show that it has surprising properties in this setting. In particular, the invariant no longer needs to be a fraction – any real number amount of twisting can be achieved! I will also discuss a new set of examples of (tame) big mapping classes called wagon wheel maps which exhibit irrational twisting behavior. This is joint work with Diana Hubbard and Peter Feller.