The faculty at UMass Amherst and the surrounding colleges have broad interests in geometry and topology that include knot theory (topological and geometric knot invariants), symplectic geometry (holomorphic curves applied to rigidity and dynamics), low-dimensional topology (smooth structures on 4-manifolds, geometric structures on 3-manifolds), orbifold theory (manifolds with local group actions, orbifold Gromov-Witten invariants), string topology (algebraic structures on loop spaces), higher categories (foundational aspects, and applications to physics and geometry), factorization algebras and operads, minimal surfaces (surfaces in R3 with mean curvature zero, modeling soap films), surfaces with constant mean curvature (surfaces modeling soap bubbles and fluid droplets), variational and evolution problems (for harmonic maps,Yamabe metrics, etc.), integrable systems (a tool for studying special surfaces, harmonic maps, etc.), harmonic analysis (to obtain PDE estimates, especially applied to dispersive and hyperbolic analogues of harmonic maps) and mathematical visualization.
Some of the faculty research is focused around the GANG (Geometry, Analysis, Numerics, and Graphics) Center, where visually compelling results are recorded. The faculty (and others) also participate in the weekly Geometry and Topology Seminar and the Valley Geometry Seminar.
Research Areas
Differential geometry and analysis: Weimin Chen
, Rob Kusner, Andrea Nahmod, William Meeks, Franz Pedit, Mike Sullivan
Low dimensional topology: R. Inanc Baykur, Weimin Chen, Rob Kusner, William Meeks, Alexei Oblomkov
Symplectic geometry and topology: R. Inanc Baykur, Tom Braden, Weimin Chen, Paul Hacking, Mike Sullivan, Franz Pedit
Homological algebra, Lie groups: Tom Braden, Owen Gwilliam, Ivan Mirkovic, Alexei Oblomkov
Algebraic topology, Homotopy theory, higher category theory: Martina Rovelli
Department of Mathematics and Statistics