Mathematics Seminar Series: Groups, Geometry, and Topology

Abstract: I will describe joint work with Elijah Rutter using ideas from decategorified bordered Heegaard Floer homology, applied to the bordered sutured version of the theory, to define a sutured generalization of the classical Frohman-Nicas TQFT for the Alexander polynomial. This sutured version gives a reinterpretation of the usual Frohman-Nicas TQFT that fixes its pathological "half-projective" functoriality property. We also incorporate Spin^c structures into our version of the theory.