Paul Seidel, IAS Princeton
Real & Complex Morse Theory
Monday May 27, 2002, 12:15, Schreiber Bldg, Room 6.
How much can one say about a complex algebraic
variety by looking at its real locus? This is an old question with many
ramifications. A simple and quite pleasant example is the work of A'Campo
and Gusein-Zade on functions of two variables (early '70s). I will review
their ideas in the light of recent progress in symplectic geometry. Roughly
speaking, the relation that they discovered can now be lifted from the level
of abelian groups (cohomology groups, intersection forms) to the level of
(triangulated) categories.