Monday

For the past several decades, SU(2) instanton Floer theory has provided numerous applications to low-dimensional topology, especially to problems involving fundamental groups of 3-manifolds. While versions of instanton Floer homology have been constructed for higher rank Lie groups such as SU(N) for any N, these variants of the theory have not yet been used to prove new topological results. I will explain in this talk the first such applications in the case N = 3. I will also discuss a structure theorem for SU(3) Donaldson-type invariants of 4-manifolds, among other topics. Based on joint work with Ali Daemi and Nobuo Iida.