Walter Neumann

Abstract:  The talk will discuss joint work with J. Wahl and recent work of M. Okuma. Splice type singularities give explicit analytic realizations for a wide range of possible topologies of complex surface singularities, directly modelled on the topology of 3-manifold link. Okuma has recently shown that Artin's rational singularities are of splice type (and another important class of singularities). A tantalizing relationship with Hilbert Class fields will also be briefly described.