We prove a correspondence theorem for singular tropical surfaces in real three space, which recovers singular algebraic surfaces in an appropriate toric three-fold that tropicalize to a given singular tropical surface. Furthermore, we develop a three-dimensional version of Mikhalkin's lattice path algorithm that enumerates singular tropical surfaces passing through an appropriate configuration of points in real three space. As application we show that there are pencils of real surfaces of degree $d$ in projective three space containing at least $(3/2)d^3+O(d^2)$ singular surfaces, which is asymptotically comparable to the number $4(d-1)^3$ of all complex singular surfaces in the pencil. Our result relies on the classification of singular tropical surfaces (arXiv:1106.2676).
In this paper, second installment in a series of three, we give a correspondence theorem to relate the count of genus $g$ curves in a fixed linear system in an abelian surface to a tropical count. To do this, we relate the linear system defined by a complex curve to certain integrals of 1-forms over cycles in the curve. We then give an expression for the tropical multiplicity provided by the correspondence theorem, and prove the invariance for the associated refined multiplicity, thus introducing refined invariants of Block-Göttsche type in abelian surfaces.
We enumerate complex curves on toric surfaces of any given degree and genus, having a single cusp and nodes as their singularities, and matching appropriately many point constraints. The solution is obtained via tropical enumerative geometry. The same technique applies to enumeration of real plane cuspidal curves: We show that, for any fixed $r\ge1$ and $d\ge2r+3$, there exists a generic real $2r$-dimensional linear family of plane curves of degree $d$ in which the number of real $r$-cuspidal curves is asymptotically comparable with the total number of complex $r$-cuspidal curves in the family…
We develop a version of Mikhalkin's lattice path algorithm for projective hypersurfaces of arbitrary degree and dimension, which enumerates singular tropical hypersurfaces passing through appropriate configuration of points. By proving a correspondence theorem combined with the lattice path algorithm, we construct a $δ$ dimensional linear space of degree $ d $ real hypersurfaces containing $\frac{1}{δ!} (γ_nd^n)^δ+ O(d^{nδ-1})$ hypersurfaces with $ δ$ real nodes, where $ γ_n $ are positive and given by a recursive formula. This is asymptotically comparable to the number $ \frac{1}{δ!} \left( (…
From wall structures to closed mirror symmetry. The case of $K_{\mathbb{P}^2}$: Renormalized periods over the positive real locus, closed Gromov-Witten invariants from wall functions, and tropical enumeration
The family of complex projective surfaces in projective three space of degree $d$ having precisely $δ$ nodes as their only singularities has codimension $δ$ in the linear system of surfaces of degree $d$ for sufficiently large $d$ and is of degree $N_{δ,complex}(d)=(4(d-1)^3)^δ/δ!+O(d^{3δ-3})$. In particular, this number is polynomial in $d$. By means of tropical geometry, we explicitly describe $(4d^3)^δ/δ!+O(d^{3δ-1})$ surfaces passing through a suitable generic configuration of $n=\binom{d+3}{3}-δ-1$ points in projective three space. These surfaces are close to tropical limits which we char…
We use floor decompositions of tropical curves to prove that any enumerative problem concerning conics passing through projective-linear subspaces in $\RP^n$ is maximal. That is, there exist generic configurations of real linear spaces such that all complex conics passing through these constraints are actually real.
We study the tropicalizations of Severi varieties, which we call tropical Severi varieties. In this paper, we give a partial answer to the following question, ``describe the tropical Severi varieties explicitly.'' We obtain a description of tropical Severi varieties in terms of regular subdivisions of polygons. As an intermediate step, we construct explicit parameter spaces of curves. These parameter spaces are much simpler objects than the corresponding Severi variety and they are closely related to flat degenerations of the Severi variety, which in turn describes the tropical Severi variety.…
We introduce tropical dual numbers as an extension of tropical semiring. By this innovation, one can work with honest ideals, instead of congruences, and recover the Euclidean topology on affine tropical spaces similar to Zariski's approach in classical algebraic geometry. The bend loci of an ideal over tropical dual numbers coincides with the bend loci of a congruence over tropical semiring and this enables tropical dual numbers to serve as an algebraic structure for tropical geometry. Tropical Zariski topology on affine tropical spaces whose closed sets are non-linear loci of ideals over tro…
We associate a half-integer number, called {\em the quantum index}, to algebraic curves in the real plane satisfying to certain conditions. The area encompassed by the logarithmic image of such curves is equal to $π^2$ times the quantum index of the curve and thus has a discrete spectrum of values. We use the quantum index to refine real enumerative geometry in a way consistent with the Block-Göttsche invariants from tropical enumerative geometry.
Complex algebraic varieties become easy piecewise-linear objects after passing to the so-called tropical limit. Geometry of these limiting objects is known as tropical geometry. In this short survey we take a look at motivation and intuition behind this limit and consider a few simple examples of correspondence principle between classical and tropical geometries.
These notes outline some basic notions of Tropical Geometry and survey some of its applications for problems in classical (real and complex) geometry. To appear in the Proceedings of the Madrid ICM.
We introduce the tropicalization of closed subschemes of a torus defined over a higher dimensional local field. We study the basic invariants of such tropicalizations. This is a generalization of the results of Einslieder, Kapranov, Lind, Speyer and Sturmfels to higher local fields.
Tropical algebraic geometry is an active new field of mathematics that establishes and studies some very general principles to translate algebro-geometric problems into purely combinatorial ones. This expository paper gives an introduction to these new techniques with a special emphasis on the recent applications to problems in enumerative geometry.
Using tropical geometry we propose a mirror construction for monomial degenerations of Calabi-Yau varieties in toric Fano varieties. The construction reproduces the mirror constructions by Batyrev for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces and by Batyrev and Borisov for Calabi-Yau complete intersections. We apply the construction to Pfaffian examples and recover the mirror given by Rodland for the degree 14 Calabi-Yau threefold in PP^6 defined by the Pfaffians of a general linear 7x7 skew-symmetric matrix. We provide the necessary background knowledge entering into the tropical mirror construction such as t…
In this text, we merge ideas around the tropical hyperfield with the theory of ordered blueprints to give a new formulation of tropical scheme theory. The key insight is that a nonarchimedean absolute value can be considered as a morphism into the tropical hyperfield. In turn, ordered blueprints make it possible to consider the base change of a classical variety to the tropical hyperfield. We call this base change the scheme theoretic tropicalization of the classical variety. Our first main result describes the Berkovich analytification and the tropicalization of a classical variety as sets of…
First, we define phase tropical hypersurfaces in terms of a degeneration data of smooth complex algebraic hypersurfaces in $(\mathbb{C}^*)^n$. Next, we prove that complex hyperplanes are diffeomorphic to their degeneration called phase tropical hyperplanes. More generally, using Mikhalkin's decomposition into pairs-of-pants of smooth algebraic hypersurfaces, we show that phase tropical hypersurfaces with smooth tropicalization, possess naturally a smooth differentiable structure. Moreover, we prove that phase tropical hypersurfaces possess a natural symplectic structure.
The notion of geometric construction is introduced. This notion allows to compare incidence configurations in the algebraic and tropical plane. We provide an algorithm such that, given a tropical instance of a geometric construction, it computes sufficient conditions to have an algebraic counterpart related by tropicalization. We also provide sufficient conditions in a geometric construction to ensure that the algebraic counterpart always exists. Geometric constructions are applied to transfer classical theorems to the tropical framework, we provide a notion of incidence theorems and prove sev…
In this paper we construct a tropical moduli space parametrizing roots of divisors on tropical curves. We study the relation between this space and the skeleton of Jarvis moduli space of nets of limit roots on stable curves. We show that the combinatorics of the moduli space of tropical roots is governed by the poset of flows, a poset parametrizing certain flows on graphs.
Kapranov's theorem is a foundational result in tropical geometry. It states that the set of tropicalisations of points on a hypersurface coincides precisely with the tropical variety of the tropicalisation of the defining polynomial. The aim of this paper is to generalise Kapranov's theorem, replacing the role of a valuation map, from a field to the real numbers union negative infinity, with a more general class of hyperfield homomorphisms, whose target is the tropical hyperfield and satisfy a relative algebraic closure condition. To provide an example of such a hyperfield homomorphism, the ma…
In this paper we generalize correspondence theorems of Mikhalkin and Nishinou-Siebert providing a correspondence between algebraic and parameterized tropical curves. We also give a description of a canonical tropicalization procedure for algebraic curves motivated by Berkovich's construction of skeletons of analytic curves. Under certain assumptions, we construct a one-to-one correspondence between algebraic curves satisfying toric constraints and certain combinatorially defined objects, called "stacky tropical reductions", that can be enumerated in terms of tropical curves satisfying linear c…
We give an introduction to Tropical Geometry and prove some results in Tropical Intersection Theory. The first part of this paper is an introduction to tropical geometry aimed at researchers in Algebraic Geometry from the point of view of degenerations of varieties using projective not-necessarily-normal toric varieties. The second part is a foundational account of tropical intersection theory with proofs of some new theorems relating it to classical intersection theory. Revised version includes many corrections, more examples, and improved exposition.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group. We develop a Gröbner theory for multiplicity-free $G$-algebras, as well as a tropical geometry for subschemes in a spherical homogeneous space $G/H$. We define the notion of a spherical tropical variety and prove a fundamental theorem of tropical geometry in this context. We also propose a definition for a spherical amoeba in $G/H$. Our work partly builds on the previous work of Vogiannou on spherical tropicalization and in some ways is complementary.
This article discusses the concept of rational equivalence in tropical geometry (and replaces the older and imperfect version arXiv:0811.2860). We give the basic definitions in the context of tropical varieties without boundary points and prove some basic properties. We then compute the "bounded" Chow groups of $\mathbb{R}^n$ by showing that they are isomorphic to the group of fan cycles. The main step in the proof is of independent interest: We show that every tropical cycle in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is a sum of (translated) fan cycles. This also proves that the intersection ring of tropical cycles i…
We study tropical geometry in the global setting using Berkovich's deformation retraction. We state and prove the generalized balancing conditions in this setting. Starting with a strictly semi-stable formal scheme, we calculate certain sheaves of vanishing cycles using analytic étale cohomology, then we interpret the tropical weights via these cycles. We obtain the balancing condition for tropical curves on the skeleton associated to the formal scheme in terms of the intersection theory on the special fiber. Our approach works over any complete discrete valuation field.
In this paper, we give some categorical description of the general spectrum functor, defining it as an adjoint of a global section functor. The general spectrum functor includes that of $F_1$ and of semirings.
This is a survey article written for the Jahresberichte der DMV. Tropical geometry can be viewed as an efficient combinatorial tool to study degenerations in algebraic geometry. Abstract tropical curves are essentially metric graphs, and covers of tropical curves maps between metric graphs satisfying certain conditions. In this short survey, we offer an introduction to the combinatorial theory of abstract tropical curves and covers of curves, and their moduli spaces, and we showcase three results demonstrating how this theory can be applied in algebraic geometry.
The number of positive solutions of a system of two polynomials in two variables defined in the field of real numbers with a total of five distinct monomials cannot exceed 15. All previously known examples have at most 5 positive solutions. Tropical geometry is a powerful tool to construct polynomial systems with many positive solutions. The classical combinatorial patchworking method arises when the tropical hypersurfaces intersect transversally. In this paper, we prove that a system as above constructed using this method has at most 6 positive solutions. We also show that this bound is sharp…
In classical geometry, a linear space is a space that is closed under linear combinations. In tropical geometry, it has long been a consensus that tropical varieties defined by valuated matroids are the tropical analogue of linear spaces. It is not difficult to see that each such space is tropically convex, i.e. closed under tropical linear combinations. However, we will also show that the converse is true: Each tropical variety that is also tropically convex is supported on the complex of a valuated matroid. We also prove a tropical local-to-global principle: Any closed, connected, locally tr…
Using Gromov-Witten theory the numbers of complex plane rational curves of degree d through 3d-1 general given points can be computed recursively with Kontsevich's formula that follows from the so-called WDVV equations. In this paper we establish the same results entirely in the language of tropical geometry. In particular this shows how the concepts of moduli spaces of stable curves and maps, (evaluation and forgetful) morphisms, intersection multiplicities and their invariance under deformations can be carried over to the tropical world.
The classical clutching and gluing maps between the moduli stacks of stable marked algebraic curves are not logarithmic, i.e. they do not induce morphisms over the category of logarithmic schemes, since they factor through the boundary. Using insight from tropical geometry, we enrich the category of logarithmic schemes to include so-called sub-logarithmic morphisms and show that the clutching and gluing maps are naturally sub-logarithmic. Building on the recent framework developed by Cavalieri, Chan, Wise, and the third author, we further develop a stack-theoretic counterpart of these maps in …
Some years ago Caporaso and Harris have found a nice way to compute the numbers N(d,g) of complex plane curves of degree d and genus g through 3d+g-1 general points with the help of relative Gromov-Witten invariants. Recently, Mikhalkin has found a way to reinterpret the numbers N(d,g) in terms of tropical geometry and to compute them by counting certain lattice paths in integral polytopes. We relate these two results by defining an analogue of the relative Gromov-Witten invariants and rederiving the Caporaso-Harris formula in terms of both tropical geometry and lattice paths.
The ring of conditions defined by C. De Concini and C. Procesi is an intersection theory for algebraic cycles in a spherical homogeneous space. In the paper we consider the ring of conditions for the group $(C^*)^n$. Up to a big extend this ring can be reduced to the cohomology rings of smooth projective toric varieties. This ring also can be described using tropical geometry. We recall these known results and provide a new description of this ring in terms of convex integral polyhedra.
We construct a family of compactifications of the affine cone of the Grassmannian variety of 2-planes. We show that both the tropical variety of the Plücker ideal and familiar valuations associated to the construction of Newton-Okounkov bodies for the Grassmannian variety can be recovered from these compactifications. In this way, we unite various perspectives for constructing toric degenerations of flag varieties.
We consider Abel maps for regular smoothing of nodal curves with values in the Esteves compactified Jacobian. In general, these maps are just rational, and an interesting question is to find an explicit resolution. We translate this problem into an explicit combinatorial problem by means of tropical and toric geometry. We show that the solution of the combinatorial problem gives rise to an explicit resolution of the Abel map. We are able to use this technique to construct and study all the Abel maps of degree one.
I describe an algebro-geometric theory of skeleta, which provides a unified setting for the study of tropical varieties, skeleta of non-Archimedean analytic spaces, and affine manifolds with singularities. Skeleta are spaces equipped with a structure sheaf of topological semirings, and are locally modelled on the spectra of the same. The primary result of this paper is that the topological space underlying a non-Archimedean analytic space may locally be recovered from the sheaf of `pointwise valuations' of its analytic functions.
We study the stationary descendant Gromov-Witten theory of toric surfaces by combining and extending a range of techniques - tropical curves, floor diagrams, and Fock spaces. A correspondence theorem is established between tropical curves and descendant invariants on toric surfaces using maximal toric degenerations. An intermediate degeneration is then shown to give rise to floor diagrams, giving a geometric interpretation of this well-known bookkeeping tool in tropical geometry. In the process, we extend floor diagram techniques to include descendants in arbitrary genus. These floor diagrams …
Hassett's moduli spaces of weighted stable curves form an important class of alternate modular compactifications of the moduli space of smooth curves with marked points. In this article we define a tropical analogue of these moduli spaces and show that the naive set-theoretic tropicalization map can be identified with a natural deformation retraction onto the non-Archimedean skeleton. This result generalizes work of Abramovich, Caporaso, and Payne treating the Deligne-Knudsen-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of smooth curves with marked points. We also study tropical analogues of t…
The purpose of this note is to give an exposition of some interesting combinatorics and convex geometry concepts that appear in algebraic geometry in relation to counting the number of solutions of a system of polynomial equations in several variables over complex numbers. The exposition is aimed for a general audience in mathematics and we hope to be accessible to undergraduate as well as advance high school students. The topics discussed belong to relatively new, and closely related branches of algebraic geometry which are usually referred to as tropical geometry and toric geometry. These ar…
In this survey, we discuss linear series on tropical curves and their relation to classical algebraic geometry, describe the main techniques of the subject, and survey some of the recent major developments in the field, with an emphasis on applications to problems in Brill-Noether theory and arithmetic geometry.
In recent years a series of remarkable advances in tropical geometry and in non-archimedean geometry have brought new insights to the moduli theory of algebraic curves and their Jacobians. The goal of this survey, an expanded version of my talks at the 2015 AMS symposium in algebraic geometry and at AGNES 2016, is to present some of the results in this area.
Let $I$ be an ideal of the ring of Laurent polynomials $K[x_1^{\pm1},\ldots,x_n^{\pm1}]$ with coefficients in a real-valued field $(K,v)$. The fundamental theorem of tropical algebraic geometry states the equality $\text{trop}(V(I))=V(\text{trop}(I))$ between the tropicalization $\text{trop}(V(I))$ of the closed subscheme $V(I)\subset (K^*)^n$ and the tropical variety $V(\text{trop}(I))$ associated to the tropicalization of the ideal $\text{trop}(I)$. In this work we prove an analogous result for a differential ideal $G$ of the ring of differential polynomials $K[[t]]\{x_1,\ldots,x_n\}$, where…
We introduce new invariants of the projective plane (and, more generally, of certain toric surfaces) that arise from the appropriate enumeration of real elliptic curves. These invariants admit a refinement (according to the quantum index) similar to the one introduced by Grigory Mikhalkin in the rational case. We also construct tropical counterparts of the refined elliptic invariants under consideration and establish a tropical algorithm allowing one to compute, {\it via} a suitable version of the correspondence theorem, the above invariants.
Tropical geometry is a relatively recent field in mathematics created as a simplified model for certain problems in algebraic geometry. We introduce the definition of abstract and planar tropical curves as well as their properties, including combinatorial type and degree. We also talk about the moduli space, a geometric object that parameterizes all possible types of abstract or planar tropical curves subject to certain conditions. Our research focuses on the moduli spaces of planar tropical curves of genus one, arbitrary degree d and any number of marked, unbounded edges. We prove that these …
Welschinger's invariant bounds from below the number of real rational curves through a given generic collection of real points in the real projective plane. We estimate this invariant using Mikhalkin's approach which deals with a corresponding count of tropical curves. In particular, our estimate implies that, for any positive integer $d$, there exists a real rational curve of degree $d$ through any collection of $3d-1$ real points in the projective plane, and, moreover, asymptotically in the logarithmic scale at least one third of the complex plane rational curves through a generic point coll…
