The Friends of Mathematics Colloquium

Speaker:  David Mehrle, University of Kentucky

Title:  Combinatorial tools in equivariant algebraic topology

Abstract:

In the last decade, two of algebraic topology’s oldest conjectures were resolved using tools from equivariant homotopy theory (homotopy theory in the presence of group actions). The power – and the difficulty – of equivariant homotopy theory comes from replacing classical invariants like groups and rings by new algebraic objects called Mackey- and Tambara functors. In this talk, I will survey these new algebraic structures arising in topology and describe how many of their properties are controlled by combinatorics.