Geometry, Topology and Dynamics of Character Varieties

This volume is based on lectures given at the highly successful three-week Summer School on Geometry, Topology and Dynamics of Character Varieties held at the National University of Singapore's Institute for Mathematical Sciences in July 2010. Aimed at graduate students in the early stages of research, the edited and refereed articles comprise an excellent introduction to the subject of the program, much of which is otherwise available only in specialized texts. Topics include hyperbolic structures on surfaces and their degenerations, applications of ping-pong lemmas in various contexts, introductions to Lorenzian and complex hyperbolic geometry, and representation varieties of surface groups into PSL(2, ℝ) and other semi-simple Lie groups. This volume will serve as a useful portal to students and researchers in a vibrant and multi-faceted area of mathematics. Sample Chapter(s) Foreword (72 KB) Chapter 1: An Invitation to Elementary Hyperbolic Geometry (708 KB) Contents:An Invitation to Elementary Hyperbolic Geometry (Ying Zhang)Hyperbolic Structures on Surfaces (Javier Aramayona)Degenerations of Hyperbolic Structures on Surfaces (Christopher J Leininger)Ping-Pong Lemmas with Applications to Geometry and Topology (Thomas Koberda)Creating Software for Visualizing Kleinian Groups (Yasushi Yamashita)Traces in Complex Hyperbolic Geometry (John R Parker)Lorentzian Geometry (Todd A Drumm)Connected Components of PGL(2,R)-Representation Spaces of Non-Orientable Surfaces (Frédéric Palesi)Rigidity and Flexibility of Surface Groups in Semisimple Lie Groups (Inkang Kim)Abelian and Non-Abelian Cohomology (Eugene Z Xia) Readership: Graduate students, researchers and professors in mathematical areas such as low-dimensional topology, dynamical systems and hyperbolic geometry. Keywords:Character Varieties;Representation Spaces;Mapping Class Groups;Hyperbolic Geometry;Kleinian GroupsKey Features:Accessible introduction to structures on surfaces, measured foliations and the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller spaceHow to write a python program to draw limit sets and other geometric objects associated with simple Kleinian groupsTwo excellent expository articles by students who attended the program