Ian Agol at Mathematics Colloquium 1 June

ICTP is pleased to announce that the next ICTP Colloquium will be on "The virtual fibering conjecture" by Professor Ian Agol from the University of California Berkeley. The talk will take place on Wednesday 1 June at 16:30 in the Budinich Lecture Hall, Leonardo Building, ICTP.

The talk will be livestreamed at http://video.ictp.it/livestream

Professor Agol is the recipient of the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for spectacular contributions to low dimensional topology and geometric group theory. Agol studies the topology and geometry of three-dimensional spaces, such as our own universe. He has donated part of his Breakthrough Prize winnings to support graduate students from developing countries through the Breakout Graduate Fellowships administered by the International Mathematical Union.

ICTP's Colloquium Series introduces audiences to talks by leading researchers and aims to increase interaction between its research groups and expose doctoral students to the Centre's rich array of physics and mathematics activities. Attendance is free and is open to all.

Abstract: The virtual fibering conjecture

Certain 3-dimensional manifolds may be formed out of lowerdimensional spaces (curves and surfaces) by taking products, or more generally by twisted products called fibrations. Prof. Agol will describe some of these constructions, and limitations on which 3-manifolds can be constructed this way. He will describe a question of William Thurston which implies that any hyperbolic 3-manifold may be constructed as a fibration up to passing to finite covers. He will then indicate some of the tools that go into the resolution of this question.