IMI Colloquium

On exotic configuration spaces.

Configuration spaces - in topology - are formed by tuples of pairwise distinct points in a topological space. They appeared in mechanics, and became a staple in algebraic topology. Their exotic versions - e.g. ones where the only k-collisions are forbidden, or those where the points can be of different "colors" - appeared extremely useful, also outside of topology proper, say in theoretical computer sciences, or theoretical robotics.

I will survey some old and new results in the area.