Ribbon graph formulation of CohFT and 2D TQFT
Date
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 13:45 - 16:45
Speaker
Motohico Mulase (University of California)
Location
Mondi Seminar Room 2, Central Building
Series
Seminar/Talk
Tags
Mathematics and CS Seminar
Host
Tamas Hausel
Contact
We present a new (or an unconventional) formulation of cohomological field theories and 2-dimensional topological quantum field theories, based on the category of ribbon graphs. In this formulation, operations on graphs (which are known by other names in the study of Hurwitz numbers and moduli of hyperbolic surfaces) are represented by natural transformations in a functor category. Our motivation lies in understanding relations between CohFT, TQFT, and topological recursion. The talk is based on my joint papers with Olivia Dumitrescu.