Surface subgroups of uniform lattices in SO(2n,1)

Speaker: Zhenghao Rao (Rutgers University – New Brunswick)

Abstract: In 2009, Kahn and Markovic proved the Surface Subgroup Theorem constructed a ubiquitous family of \pi_1-injective immersed surfaces in closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds, by developing the good panted surface construction. Hamenstadt later applied this method to show that any cocompact lattice of some simple rank 1 Lie group other than SO(2n,1) has a surface subgroup. Recently, we generalized this method to even dimensional closed hyperbolic manifolds, which are the missing cases from the work of Hamenstadt. This is joint work with Jeremy Kahn.

Introduction to the Speaker: Zhenghao Rao is a Hill Assistant Professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He received his Ph.D. at Brown University in 2024, and before that, he received his B.S. at Peking University in 2019. His research interests include hyperbolic geometry and discrete geometry.

Time: 10:00, 2026-01-09

Location: R1410, SIMIS