Date & Time: Thursday, January 29, 2009, 15:30-16:30.
Venue: Room 215

Title: K-Theory of Homogeneous Spaces -IV

Speaker: Parameswaran Sankaran, IMSc Chennai

Abstract: We consider smooth compact manifolds on which a compact connected Lie group G acts transitively. The problem of determining the K-ring of such a homogeneous space G/H is closely related to the complex representation ring of G and that of the isotropy subgroup H. The result is well-known and goes back to the work of Atiyah and Hirzebruch in the case when G is classical and H connected of maximal rank. We shall discuss this as well as the case where H is not of maximal rank and possibly not even connected. Some applications to topology of certain homogeneous spaces will be discussed.