Texas A&M University, Department of
Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 29th of March 2006, 3:00-3:50
Groups and Dynamics Seminar
Strand
Diagrams, Configuration Spaces, and Associahedra
Jim Belk of Texas A&M University
We will discuss strand diagrams for elements of Thompson's group F.
These diagrams (obtained by joining together the two trees of a tree
diagram) make F
look similar to a braid group.
Pursuing the analogy, we
construct a "configuration space" that turns out to be a K(F,1), and
whose universal cover is an ascending union of associahedra.