Séminaire de topologie, géométrie et algèbre (archives)

Weierstrass points on algebraic curves are special points of high importance in algebraic geometry and arithmetic geometry. In this talk, we study how those special points behave when the algebraic curve degenerates to a nodal curve. To this end, we first explain why tropical geometry is a relevant formalism for studying degeneration questions. We then define a tropical analogue on metric graphs (seen as tropical curves) for Weierstrass points, and explore the properties of the so-called “tropical Weierstrass locus”. We also associate intrinsic weights to the connected components of this locus, and show that their total sum for a given metric graph and divisor is a function of few combinatorial parameters (degree and rank of the divisor, genus of the metric graph). Finally, in the case the divisor on the metric graph comes from the tropicalization of a divisor on an algebraic curve, we specify the compatibility between the Weierstrass loci.

In 2000, Eliashberg and Polterovich introduced the notion of orderability to investigate the structure of the group of contact diffeomorphisms and the structure of isotopy classes of Legendrian submanifolds. Roughly speaking, a group of contact diffeomorphisms is orderable if the relation induced by the partial order on contact hamiltonian maps induces a partial order on the associated time-one flows. In this talk, we will explain why orderability is equivalent to the existence of spectral selectors and how these selectors can be used to derive multiple geometric properties in the orderable situation. This is a joint work with Pierre-Alexandre Arlove.

In this talk, I will present recent results concerning special values of certain combinatorial zeta functions counting geodesic paths in triangulations. I will show that those values are related to some topological invariants. As such, we recover the first Betti number or L^2-Betti number of a compact manifold, as well as the linking number of knots in a 3-manifold. This is a joint work with Léo Bénard, Viet Dang and Thomas Schick.

(The talk will be in French.) Je décrirai la première construction, due à Hyde et Lodha, de groupes simples de présentation finie agissant fidèlement sur la droite. Il s'agit de groupes d'homéomorphismes affines par morceaux convenablement définis. L'exposé ne nécessite de prérequis ni en dynamique, ni en théorie des groupes. Il s'agit d'une variante d'une construction due à R. Thompson dans les années 60, qui donnait alors des groupes simples infinis de présentation finie agissant fidèlement sur le cercle - qui étaient alors les premiers exemples connus de groupes simples infinis de présentation finie.

(Joint with Erwan Brugallé and Lucía López de Medrano.) Combinatorial patchworking is a technique introduced by Viro to study the topology of real algebraic hypersurfaces. It's base ingredients are a triangulation of a lattice polytope and a sign distribution on its vertices. If the triangulation is "convex", the construction can be translated to the dual setting of tropical varieties. In recent years, this dual viewpoint has promoted new results using tropical homology theories. For example, Renaudineau and Shaw proved a conjecture by Itenberg bounding the Betti numbers of the real part of a (unimodular) patchwork hypersurface in terms of the Hodge numbers of the complex part. In our work, we go back to the original setting and show that many of the new results hold in the non-convex case and, to some extent, in higher codimensions. In my talk, I will try to give a brief overview of these results and their “new” formulation in the “old” setting.