EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Symplectomorphisms of exotic discs
Speaker: Ailsa Keating
Speaker Info: IAS/Columbia
Brief Description:
Special Note:
Abstract:

It is a theorem of Gromov that the group of compactly supported symplectomorphisms of R^4, equipped with the standard symplectic form, is contractible. While nothing is known in higher dimensions for the standard symplectic form, we show that for some exotic symplectic forms on R^{4n}, for all but finitely n, there exist compactly supported symplectomorphisms that are smoothly non-trivial. The principal ingredients are constructions of Milnor and Munkres, a symplectic and contact version of the Gromoll filtration, and Borman, Eliashberg and Murphy's work on existence of over-twisted contact structures. Joint work with Roger Casals and Ivan Smith.