USC Topology Seminar: Quasi-algebraic braids

Ian Le Title: Quasi-algebraic braids Abstract: In joint work with Konstantin Jakob, Masoud Kamgarpour and Minh-Tam Trinh, partly motivated by the study of braid varieties, we define quasi-algebraic braids. These are braids coming from maps of formal loops (Spec(C((t))) into a hyperplane complement. These arise naturally in two ways: 1) as links of singularities of plane curves 2) as Stokes data for irregular singularities. It turns out that algebraic braids are quite a restrictive class. I'll explain a complete classification/construction of them.