This is a summary of the topology reading groups taking place in Oxford in Hilary term 2025:

Everyone is welcome to all of these!

For questions and to be added to the mailing lists, please contact the person listed below each respective reading group. (If you have filled out the when2meet, you will automatically be added to the mailing list.)

1) Introduction to GGT - Wednesdays 12:00-13:00:

There will be introductions to key topics in geometric group theory. This should be accessible and useful to all (including master's students). 

Contact: Shaked Bader

2) Bestvina-Brady Morse theory - Mondays 14:00-15:00:

We will read the paper and continue from there. Each week, somebody else will present a part of the paper.

Contact: Shaked Bader

3) Property T - Mondays 12:00-13:00: 

We will start with reading the paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/1106.2242, showing that random groups have property T. We'll read about T related topics according to the preference of the people involved. No need for previous knowledge about property T or random groups.

Contact: Shaked Bader 

4) Modular Functor from Conformal Blocks, aka Topology Advanced Class - Mondays 11:00-12:00: 

We will follow the recent paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.05845. We will introduce conformal blocks and modular functors, and go over the recent Damiolini-Woike proof that the sheaf of conformal blocks forms a modular functor. For exact details, see the following PDF. 

Contact: Adria Marin Salvador

5) Low-Dimensional Topology Journal Club - Wednesdays 10:45-11:45: 

We will present a different (somewhat recent) paper we enjoyed each week. 

Contact: Colin McCulloch

6) Morse Theory: Thursdays 10:00-11:00: 

We will go through classical Morse Theory by Milnor. 

Contact: Colin McCulloch