Foam Evaluation

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together mathematicians interested in foams and their use in low-dimensional topology, representation theory, categorification, mathematical physics, and combinatorics. The workshop will focus on the foam evaluation formula and its applications. More concretely, we aim to: (a) Give a more intrinsic definition of the foam evaluation, in order, for instance, to find similar formulas for the other Lie types; (b) Understand the interplay between foams and matrix factorizations and further use foams for a unified and comprehensive approach to Khovanov-Rozansky link homology theories; (c) Compare combinatorial foam evaluation with the geometric structures and invariants coming from gauge theory and symplectic geometry; (d) Study potential applications of the foamy definition of link homology theories. This workshop is fully funded by a Simons Foundation Targeted Grant to Institutes.