URegina Topology & Geometry Seminar: Matt Alexander

Before the winter break we saw a number of key structures of deformation theory: differential graded Lie algebras, the Maurer-Cartan equation and its gauge group, and L-infinity algebras. In this talk, we will see how such structures arise in the deformation theory of Poisson manifolds. We will motivate this theory from the perspective of physics and will see how it relates to the transition between the classical and quantum regimes.