Program:

The workshop will be built around the following three minicourses:

• Marco Golla — Applications of branched covers
  This minicourse will be based on a course that Marco has held before. In particular he will sketch the proof of the G-signature theorem and sketch two or three applications.

• Marc Kegel — Describing 3-manifolds via branched covers
  This minicourse will focus on foundational results such as the realization of all closed, orientable 3-manifolds as branched covers, the existence of universal links, and describing a complete set of moves for branched covers.
  Literature: 

John Etnyre: Notes on Branched Coverings, available online here. 

V. V. Prasolov and A. B. Sossinsky: Knots, Links, Braids and 3-Manifolds: An Introduction to the New Invariants in Low-Dimensional Topology, available online here. 

Dale Rolfsen: Knots and Links, available online here. 

• Luisa Paoluzzi — Characterizing knots by their branched covers

In this course, we will examine to what extent knots are determined by the topology of their branched covers.

Lecture notes: available below.

A preliminary schedule can be found below. Most likely there will be further changes of the schedule at a later date (or during the workshop) to address the needs of speakers and participants.