Conference in Honor of Ronald Fintushel

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AbstractAward: DMS-0506737Principal Investigator: Thomas Mark, Scott J. Baldridge, Terry LawsonThis proposal funds a conference in honor of Professor RonaldFintushel's sixtieth birthday, to be held in late October or November2005 at Tulane University. Dr. Fintushel has led a distinguishedcareer as a researcher in low-dimensional topology, particularly thedifferential topology of 3- and 4-dimensional manifolds andapplications of gauge theory to that study. His work with variousco-authors on group actions on low-dimensional manifolds, and morerecent results with Ronald Stern on the homology cobordism group ofhomology 3-spheres, gauge theory, and constructions of ``exotic''4-manifolds, has been an inspiration to contemporary topologists andcontinues to provide new directions for inquiry in these areas. Thepast two decades have been a period of remarkable progress inlow-dimensional topology, particularly the theory of smooth4-manifolds. This conference, involving leading figures in this area,will provide participants with both a context in which to understandrecent advances and a framework for future endeavors. The speakerswill include experts in fields that Fintushel has contributed to, witha focus on smooth 4-manifolds, and the audience will include graduatestudents and recent Ph.D.'s who will benefit from exposure toFintushel's fascinating and creative work. Both Ronald Stern (UCIrvine) and Peter Ozsvath (Columbia) have already expressed interestin giving lectures; other invited speakers may include John Morgan(Columbia), Tomasz Mrowka (MIT), Allan Edmonds (Indiana), DannyRuberman (Brandeis), Zoltan Szabo (Princeton), and Clifford Taubes(Harvard). The final schedule will be determined closer to the time ofthe conference in consultation with Dr. Fintushel; the influence ofthe guest of honor can often sway the balance in a speaker's decisionto attend.As a conference in honor of an individual, the lectures will naturallycenter on those areas of research most influenced by thatindividual. Dr. Fintushel has made many contributions to an area ofmathematics that has relatively recently become a crossroads amongdisciplines, both within mathematics and in theoreticalphysics. Conferences such as this are therefore increasinglyimportant, providing researchers with a variety of perspectives onproblems that are nevertheless united by common themes. As a jointproject of Tulane University, Southeastern Louisiana University, andLouisiana State University, this conference will provide exposure forthese mathematics departments on a national level and boost thereputation of the region as a center of research. This will increasethe potential for the universities in this area to attract morehigh-quality faculty and students from around the country. Likewise,the conference will enhance the exposure of local current graduatestudents to the latest developments in research and to the researchersthemselves.