at the
American Institute of Mathematics, San Jose, California
organized by
Juliette Bavard, Priyam Patel, Anja Randecker, and Jing Tao
Surfaces of finite type and their mapping class groups have been the object of intensive study over the last several decades. By contrast, surfaces of infinite type and their mapping class groups, often called "big mapping class groups", are much more mysterious, and even the most basic questions about them remain open. Nevertheless, they also arise naturally: they are connected to problems in dynamics (group actions on surfaces, complex dynamics) and to the theory of taut foliations of 3-manifolds.
Recently, there has been surge of interests in surfaces of infinite type and big mapping class groups. First results have been established, but there are still many open questions. This includes for example how the algebraic invariants of big mapping class groups are related to the topological properties of the underlying surface. Another open question is to find an analogue of the Nielsen-Thurston classification for big mapping class groups, and, for some remaining cases, an analogue of the curve complex on which big mapping class groups have an interesting action. A further aspect is to study surfaces of infinite type that are equipped with a more rigid structure, such as translation surfaces. This includes the search for an analogue of the moduli space of translation surfaces and the study of the behavior of Veech groups in the infinite-type setting.
The goal of this workshop is to bring together several small but active communities working on various aspects of this young field. The main topics of the workshop are:
The workshop schedule.
A report on the workshop activities.
A list of open problems.
Papers arising from the workshop: