Geometry & Topology: James Morgan -- On the complexity of two-bridge link complements

Monday 18 September 2023, 15:00-16:00, Carslaw 535

Speaker: James Morgan (Sydney)

Title: On the complexity of two-bridge link complements

Abstract: The class of two-bridge links are known to possess a nice geometry 
in the sense that an ideal triangulation of their complements can be read directly 
from the link diagram. A certain infinite family of these triangulations, first 
studied by Sakuma and Weeks, have been shown to be minimal through volume bound 
arguments by Ishikawa and Nemoto. The complexity for the vast majority of these 
link complements, however, remains unknown.

In this talk we will define the Sakuma-Weeks triangulations of two-bridge link 
complements and discuss recent progress on determining their complexity. This is 
joint work with Jonathan Spreer.