Hebrew University topology and geometry seminar

Abstract: In a Riemannian manifold, minimal submanifolds are the critical points for the volume; they generalize complex submanifolds in Kähler manifolds and soap bubbles with fixed boundary in $\mathbb{R}^3$. We will discuss new examples of codimension $2$ minimal submanifolds in compact Lie groups, focusing on the case of $SU(n)$. The proof uses basic representation theory and harmonic morphisms: these are maps between Riemannian manifolds which pull back harmonic functions to harmonic functions.