LGRT 1685
After some background on complex surface singularities, I will give a brief overview of De Jong -- Van Straten deformation theory for a certain class of singularities that allows to describe Milnor fibers in terms of deformations of related singular plane curves. Then I will explain how this theory can be extended, using Lefschetz fibrations, to describe symplectic fillings of a class of links of singularities in terms of curve arrangements. In the GT seminar, I will connect this story to constructions of non-Milnor Stein fillings. [The pre-talk won't require much background, and I will explain all the words that appear in this abstract.]
Note:
This is a pre-talk for GTS, intended for graduate students and non-experts.