Counterexamples to a simple loop conjecture for PSL(2,C)

Seminar: 
Geometry & Topology
Event time: 
Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - 11:30am to Monday, December 6, 2010 - 7:00pm
Location: 
431 DL
Speaker: 
Jason Manning
Speaker affiliation: 
SUNY
Event description: 

Minsky asked: Does every non-faithful homomorphism from a
closed orientable surface group to PSL(2,C) kill some simple loop? We
show that the answer is no by producing examples of non-faithful
homomorphisms sending every simple loop either to a non-trivial
parabolic or to a loxodromic with non-real trace. This is joint work
with Daryl Cooper.