Date: 6 February 2015, 4:30pm
Location: Hempfield High School, Room 213
 Speaker: Lisa Traynor, Bryn Mawr College
   Title: Lagrangian Endocobordisms for a Legendrian Knot

Abstract.  Smooth cobordisms between submanifolds play an
important role in topology.  I will discuss smooth cobordisms that have
additional geometric conditions imposed by symplectic and contact
structures.  In particular, I will discuss Lagrangian cobordisms between
Legendrian knots.  Whereas the genus of a smooth cobordism (orientable
or not) between a knot and itself can be arbitrary, the genus of an
orientable Lagrangian endocobordism must vanish, and non-orientable
Lagrangian endocobordisms must have a genus that is a multiple of 4.
Furthermore, some Legendrian knots will have an infinite number of
“exact” non-orientable Lagrangian endocobordisms, while other Legendrian
knots have none. This is joint work with Orsola Capovilla-Searle.