Seminar

abstract: This introductory meeting will aim to be accessible to all enumerative geometers and give an overview of abstract methods used to construct 'virtual fundamental classes' of pseudoholomorphic curve moduli spaces in general symplectic manifolds. 

In the first hour, Katrin Wehrheim will survey various answers to the question "What do symplectic topologists do when geometric perturbations - of (almost) complex structure, Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, etc - fail?" 

In the second hour, Dusa McDuff will reduce most of these descriptions of moduli spaces to zero sets of finite rank bundles over a branched manifold. 

general logistics:

In future meetings, this seminar will concentrate on the polyfold technology developed by Hofer-Wysocki-Zehnder - assuming basic background (e.g. Polyfolds: A First and Second Look) or acceptance of a large black box. 

In particular, our 'polyfold lab consulting service' will aim to turn dream proofs involving compact J-curve moduli spaces into rigorous polyfold proofs. Please contact katrin@math.berkeley.edu if you have dream proofs to offer.