| Event Title: | Isotropic curvature and topology |
| Speaker: | Dr. Harish Seshadri |
| Affiliation: | Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore. |
| Abstract/Brief Description: | The notion of "curvature on isotropic 2-planes" was introduced by Micallef and Moore. This curvature is intimately related to the second variation of the area functional in a Riemannian manifold. We will begin by describing the theorem of Micallef-Moore that a compact simply connected manifold of positive isotropic curvature is homeomorphic to the sphere. We will describe our work in the second half which shows, in contrast to the Micallef-Moore theorem that every compact 4-manifold admits a metric of negative isotropic curvature. |
| Subject Area: | Mathematics |
| Date: | Thursday, April 8, 2004 |
| Time: | 4:00pm-5:00pm |
| Duration: | 60 minutes |
| Venue: | Lecture Hall - I, Dept. of Mathematics, IISc. |