AbstractIn 1987, Hitchin constructed a complete hyperkähler metric on the moduli space of Higgs bundles, which can be generalized to accommodate singularities. In this talk, we consider Higgs bundles with irregular singularities over the Riemann sphere. We construct a generic ray in the moduli space and study the asymptotic behavior of the Hitchin metric along this ray. Using the techniques dev...
Abstract:The topological group of homeomorphisms of d-dimensional Euclidean space is a basic object in geometric topology, closely related to understanding the difference between diffeomorphisms and homeomorphisms of all d-dimensional manifolds (except when d=4). I will explain some methods that have been used for studying the algebraic topology of this group, and report on a recently obtained...