Professor Yi Hu, Department of Mathematics, The University of Arizona, and Professor Philip Foth, Department of Mathematics, The University of Arizona

Polygon Spaces appear naturally in several areas: Topology/Configuration Spaces, Differential Geometry/Symplectic Geometry, and Algebraic Geomtry. Polygon Spaces frequently are presented to non-specialists as simple and elegent examples for some deeper theories such as the correspondence between quotients in symplectic geometry and algebraic geometry and moduli problems. In 3–4 lectures, we propose to introduce in simple terms the following:

1. Spacial Polygon Spaces as topological spaces and symplectic spaces.
2. Planar Polygon Spaces and their relations with the Spacial Polygon Spaces.
3. The applications of polygon spaces and connections with other fields/problems.