ABSTRACT: Real analytic foliations play a unique role in differential topology. Unlike the situation for smooth foliations, real analytic foliations have a universal group, and homomorphisms of fundamental
groups of surfaces into this group are related to fundamental problems in 3-manifold theory.  But, many of the original results about the classifying spaces for foliations do not cover the analytic case. We will present real analytic versions of theorems of Mather and Segal concerning the homology of classifying spaces for foliations.

This is designed to be the first of two talks, with the emphasis here on the formal theory including techniques for computing the homology of classifying spaces. In the second talk, Real Analytic Foliations and 3-Manifolds, we will focus on applications.

For further information contact Alex Martsinkovsky <alexmart@neu.edu>