Date & Time: Monday, September 9, 2013, 15:30-16:30.
Venue: Ramanujan Hall

Speaker: Anandaswarup Gadde, University of Melbourne

Title: Decompositions of groups and 3-manifolds

Abstract: We consider decompositions of 3-manifolds into simpler pieces and in these studies fundamental group plays an important role. Even though 3-manifolds are very special in the class of all manifolds and there is no complete characterization of their groups, the strucure theorems for 3-manifolds suggest structural results for groups. In this talk we describe some of these interactions starting with the work of John Stallings and others to some recent work with Peter Scott.