John A. Baldwin, Hans U. Boden, John B. Etnyre and Liam
Watson
Vol. 5 (2022), No. 1, 9
DOI: 10.2140/obs.2022.5.9
This volume is a proceedings of the 2020 Banff
International Research Station (BIRS) workshop “Interactions
of gauge theory with contact and symplectic topology in
dimensions 3 and 4”. This was the sixth iteration of a
recurring workshop held in Banff. Regrettably, the workshop
was not held onsite but was instead an online gathering over
Zoom, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, one
benefit of the online format was that the participant list
could be expanded beyond the usual strict limit of 42
individuals. It seemed to be also fitting, given the altered
circumstances and larger than usual list of participants, to
take the opportunity to put together a conference
proceedings.
The result is this volume, which features papers
showcasing research from participants at the sixth
Interactions workshop (or earlier ones). As the title
suggests, the emphasis is on research in gauge theory,
contact and symplectic topology, and low-dimensional
topology. The volume contains sixteen refereed papers, and it
is representative of the many excellent talks and fascinating
results presented at the Interactions workshops over the
years since its inception in 2007.
We take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions
of Dennis Auroux and Olivier Collin, who were instrumental in
founding and organizing the BIRS Interactions workshops.
Partial funding was provided by NSF grant DMS1454865 and the
Georgia Institute of Technology's Elaine M. Hubbard
Distinguished Faculty Award. We thank Conall Hegarty and
Fintan Hegarty for their rapid and professional copy-editing
services. We also thank Alex Scorpan and Silvio Levy, our
contacts at Mathematical Sciences Publishers, for all their
help and support throughout the publication process.