Geometry and Topology Seminar
Random walks on the mapping class group
Joseph Maher, Oklahoma State University
Details
Wednesday October 4, 2006
809 Physical Sciences Center
4:00 pm / 3:30 tea
Abstract
I will introduce the mapping class group of a surface, and discuss some of its properties. We will show that a random walk on the mapping class group gives rise to a pseudo-Anosov element with probability one. We use this to show that a random Heegaard splitting is hyperbolic with probability one, assuming geometrization.