GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
COLLOQUIUM
APRIL 17, 2015


Speaker: Lowell Abrams, George Washington University

Title: Cellular automorphisms of embedded graphs and two mathematical applications

Abstract: I will begin by aquainting the audience with the notions of a cellular graph embedding in a surface, cellular automorphisms of embedded graphs, and a notion of "equivariant reduction" for embedded graphs which generalizes graph minors. I will then describe a catalog Dan Slilaty and I constructed of all irreducible cellular automorphisms of graphs in the sphere, projective plane, torus, Klein bottle, and 3-crosscaps surface. Finally, I will show how Dan Slilaty and I have applied this catalog to (1) the construction of self-dual graph embeddings, and (2) the identification of the minimal obstructions to embedding symmetric graphs in the sphere in such a way that the symmetry extends to the sphere.

Time: Friday, April 17, 2015, 3:30-4:20 p.m.

Place: Exploratory Hall, room 4106

Refreshments will be served at 3:00 p.m.

Department of Mathematical Sciences
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MS 3F2
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
http://math.gmu.edu/
Tel. 703-993-1460, Fax. 703-993-1491