3. Postdoctoral Program - MSRI

developments which occurred in this context have already been described above. Michael
Hutchings’ talk about Symplectic embedding obstructions from ECH (Embedded Contact Homology)
was a significant contribution to the aims of the workshop. Kenji Fukaya spoke about
Cyclic symmetry enumerative invariants and mirror symmetry, which was of interest because
of applications to Lagrangian (non)displacement, especially in comparison with Polterovich’s
work on quasi-states. As a side-note, we point out that the focus on developing quantitative
measures was also reflected elsewhere in the program. For example, Mark McLean’s research
seminar lecture on The growth rate of symplectic homology and applications was absolutely in
the spirit of this working group.
2. Symplectic Geometry and Representation Theory. The initial idea of this seminar was to
use mirror symmetry for hyperkaehler manifolds, as a way to link symplectic geometry to
representation theory on a categorical level. The seminar had several ultra-short talks each
meeting followed by more lengthy discussions. Participants included Paul Seidel, Ivan Smith,
Mohammed Abouzaid, Sabin Cautis, and Catharina Stroppel (the last two were members of
the concurrent HTKL program). In particular, the group explored the symplectic meaning of
several representation theory constructions introduced by Stroppel. Intended future applications
are to symplectic Khovanov homology.
3. Sutured Manifolds and the Contact Category. This was an informal seminar that gave
an introduction to the contact invariant in Sutured Heegaard Floer Homology followed by an
series of talks by Honda on the Contact Category. This was the first extended exposition on
this theory that is still in development.
Postdoctoral Seminar This was a joint seminar between the Symplectic and Contact Geometry
and Topology program an the Tropical Geometry program in the Fall and the Homology
Theories of Knots and Links program in the Spring. Each week one postdoctoral fellow from
each program gave a 30-45 minute talk on their research. In the Spring non-post docs and
graduate students were banned from these talks to provide a more laid-back environment in
which communication between the programs could more easily flourish.
Graduate Student/Learning Seminar This was a joint seminar between the programs (between
symplectic geometry and tropical geometry programs in the Fall semester, and between
symplectic geometry and homology theories program in the Spring semester). In the Fall it
was organized by Jian He, and in the Spring by Megumi Harada and Tara Holm. The style of
work of the seminar was different in 2 semesters. In the Fall with a few exceptions gave talks
by themselves, while in the Spring the seminar series was thematic, recruiting visiting (and
local) experts to speak on a number of topics which the participating students were interested
in learning. Speakers were asked to prepare 45-minute talks, but the sessions often lasted the
full 90 minutes because of the active question-and-answer/discussions which took place during
and after the talks. To give an example, Reza Rezazadegan gave a memorable talk in which
he spent only 5 minutes introducing the ”bare bones” of symplectic Khovanov homology, and
then turned to the audience and asked, ”Are there any questions?” The audience laughed, and
then started peppering Reza with requests for more detailed definitions/explanations of the
terms he had placed on the board. The rest of the talk – which lasted fully 90 minutes! –
proceeded in much the same (conversational and interactive) manner. Attendance was regularly
high, due in part to the effort made by the speakers to give accessible and introductory
talks. To give a sense of the level of attendance, we note that there were 16 people who signed
up for the ”SCGT student learning seminar” e-mail list; however, many of the seminars were
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