The Atiyah-Floer conjecture states that the instanton Floer homology of certain three-dimensional manifold M (constructed using gauge theory) is isomorphic to the Lagrangian Floer homology associated to M and a separating surface Σ (constructed using symplectic geometry). In this talk I will review the construction of these two Floer theories and explain Atiyah's original idea about the correspondence between them. The talk will be expository and accessible to graduate students. Video recording available at: https://tamu.zoom.us/rec/share/n2pv7TxIWfOU2jq-BSpI0Z3sUPey1RW5YTQkiHzfYnBhzFpgRv8LehuPiHjqW5on.kCygmvYBTG_2fHW3 (Access Password: =S6$Y7GA)

The Adams conjecture, perhaps one of the most celebrated results in the subject of stable homotopy theory, was resolved by Quillen and Sullivan independently in the 1970s. Essentially, the Adams conjecture says that the q-th Adams operation composed with the J-homomorphism can be deformed continuously to the J-homomorphism itself if localized away from q. The stable enhancement of the Adams conjecture (which is only possible in the complex case) claims that this deformation can be achieved within the space of infinite loop maps from BU to the classifying space of spherical bundles. We recently found that the only accepted proof of the stable Adams conjecture, which is due to Friedlander (1980), has a mistake. In this talk, I will explain the mistake, reformulate the statement of the stable Adams conjecture, sketch our new proof of the stable Adams conjecture and discuss some of the ramifications. This is joint work with N. Kitchloo.

Thurston conjectured that quasi-Fuchsian manifolds are determined by the induced hyperbolic metrics on the boundary of their convex core and Mess generalized those conjectures to the context of globally hyperbolic AdS spacetimes. In this talk I will discuss a universal version of these conjectures (and prove the existence part) by considering convex sets spanning quasicircles in the boundary at infinity of hyperbolic and anti-de Sitter space. This work generalizes Alexandrov and Pogorelov's results about the characterization metrics induced on the boundary of a compact convex subset of hyperbolic space. Time permitting, we will discuss why in hyperbolic space quasicircles can't be characterized by the width of their convex hulls, except when the convex hulls have small width. This is different than the anti-de Sitter setting, as Bonsante and Schlenker showed. (This is joint work with Bonsante, Danciger and Schlenker.) Video recording is available at https://tamu.zoom.us/rec/share/_A6ZUaZTjFW0EvL90F_z22eLAHewUPSV4dQZ9kLHTYNLsG0VX61lv1kWtidJ1j3R.fia_NZuVr1sEYoMO (Access Password: eEniSG*4)

In this talk, I will discuss two conjectures which relate quantum topology and hyperbolic geometry. Chen and Yang conjectured that the asymptotics of the Turaev-Viro invariants determine the hyperbolic volume of the 3-manifold, and Andersen, Masbaum, and Ueno (AMU) conjectured for a surface that the asymptotics of the quantum representations reflect certain geometric properties of the mapping class group. For a manifold M(f) constructed as the mapping tori of an element f in the mapping class group, Detcherry and Kalfagianni showed that M(f) satisfying the Turaev-Viro invariant volume conjecture implies that f satisfies the AMU conjecture. Using techniques from Turaev's shadow theory, I construct infinite families of links in the 3-sphere with complement homeomorphic to the complement of fundamental shadow links which are a class of links in connected sums of S^2 times S^1 that satisfy the Turaev-Viro invariant volume conjecture. Through homeomorphisms, these link complements in S^3 can be realized as the mapping tori for explicit elements in the mapping class group providing families that satisfy the AMU conjecture. Video recording is available at https://tamu.zoom.us/rec/share/NVDt4tmOzD6DyGdOfO8XTjBCMBG0d_BK4grFJPN35hrSa7b-N_0rD1MS_OfLEOWK.OV72bu9Mc4g3cwyL (Access Password: 13TuT+XF)

Classifications of Legendrian knots and their exact Lagrangian fillings are central questions in low-dimensional contact and symplectic topology. Recent development suggests that one can use cluster seeds to distinguish exact Lagrangian fillings. It requires a filling-to-cluster functoriality over a moduli space of Legendrian invariants. This invariant can be sheaf theoretic (Shende-Treumann-Williams-Zaslow) or Floer theoretic (joint work with Linhui Shen and Daping Weng). As an application, I will explain how to use Legendrian loops and cluster algebras to construct infinitely many exact Lagrangian fillings for most torus links (joint work with Roger Casals, using sheaf-theoretic invariants), and for most positive braid links (joint work with Linhui Shen and Daping Weng, using Floer-theoretic invariants).