Kontsevich's formula is a recursion that calculates the number of rational degree $d$ curves in $\mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{C}}^2$ passing through $3d-1$ general positioned points. Kontsevich proved it by considering curves that satisfy extra conditions besides the given point conditions. These crucial extra conditions are two line conditions and a condition called cross-ratio.
This paper addresses the question whether there is a general Kontsevich's formula which holds for more than one cross-ratio. Using tropical geometry, we obtain such a recursive formula. For that we use a correspondence theorem arXiv:1509.07453 that relates the algebro-geometric numbers in question to tropical ones. It turns out that the general tropical Kontsevich's formula we obtain is capable of not only computing the algebro-geometric numbers we are looking for, but also of computing further tropical numbers for which there is no correspondence theorem yet.
We show that our recursive general Kontsevich's formula implies the original Kontsevich's formula and that the initial values are the numbers Kontsevich's fomula provides and purely combinatorial numbers, so-called cross-ratio multiplicities.
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.
This paper introduces a new structure of commutative semiring, generalizing the tropical semiring, and having an arithmetic that modifies the standard tropical operations, i.e. summation and maximum. Although our framework is combinatorial, notions of regularity and invertibility arise naturally for matrices over this semiring; we show that a tropical matrix is invertible if and only if it is regular.
We illustrate the use of tropical methods by generalizing a formula due to Abramovich and Bertram, extended later by Vakil. Namely, we exhibit relations between enumerative invariants of the Hirzebruch surfaces $Σ_n$ and $Σ_{n+2}$, obtained by deforming the first surface to the latter. Our strategy involves a tropical counterpart of deformations of Hirzebruch surfaces, and tropical enumerative geometry on a tropical surface in three-space.
We prove two tropical gluing formulae for Gromov-Witten invariants of exploded manifolds, useful for calculating Gromov-Witten invariants of a symplectic manifold using a normal-crossing degeneration. The first formula generalizes the symplectic-sum formula for Gromov-Witten invariants. The second formula is stronger, and also generalizes Kontsevich and Manin's splitting and genus-reduction axioms. Both tropical gluing formulae have versions incorporating gravitational descendants.
There is an equation relating numbers of curves on F_0 satisfying incidence conditions and numbers of curves on F_2 satisfying incidence conditions. The purpose of this paper is to give a tropical proof of this equation in the case of rational curves. We use induction on the degree and two Kontsevich-type formulas for curves on F_0 and on F_2. The formula for F_2 was not known before and is proved using tropical geometry.
We study the topology of a space parametrizing stable tropical curves of genus g with volume 1, showing that its reduced rational homology is canonically identified with both the top weight cohomology of M_g and also with the genus g part of the homology of Kontsevich's graph complex. Using a theorem of Willwacher relating this graph complex to the Grothendieck-Teichmueller Lie algebra, we deduce that H^{4g-6}(M_g;Q) is nonzero for g=3, g=5, and g at least 7. This disproves a recent conjecture of Church, Farb, and Putman as well as an older, more general conjecture of Kontsevich. We also give …
In this paper, we classify singular real plane tropical curves by means of subdivisions of Newton polytopes. First, we introduce signed Bergman fans (generalizing positive Bergman fans from [AKW06]) that describe real tropicalizations of real linear spaces ([Tab15]). Then, we establish a duality of real plane tropical curves and signed regular subdivisions of the Newton polytope and explore the combinatorics. We define a signed secondary fan that parametrizes real tropical Laurent polynomials and study the subset providing singular real plane tropical curves. A cone of the signed secondary fan…
Gross-Pandharipande-Siebert have shown that the 2-dimensional Kontsevich-Soibelman scattering diagrams compute certain genus zero log Gromov-Witten invariants of log Calabi-Yau surfaces. We show that the $q$-refined 2-dimensional Kontsevich-Soibelman scattering diagrams compute, after the change of variables $q=e^{i \hbar}$, generating series of certain higher genus log Gromov-Witten invariants of log Calabi-Yau surfaces. This result provides a mathematically rigorous realization of the physical derivation of the refined wall-crossing formula from topological string theory proposed by Cecotti-…
Elements of the tropical vertex group are formal families of symplectomorphisms of the 2-dimensional algebraic torus. Commutators in the group are related to Euler characteristics of the moduli spaces of quiver representations and the Gromov-Witten theory of toric surfaces. After a short survey of the subject (based on lectures of Pandharipande at the 2009 Geometry summer school in Lisbon), we prove new results about the rays and symmetries of scattering diagrams of commutators (including previous conjectures by Gross-Siebert and Kontsevich). Where possible, we present both the quiver and Grom…
We prove a tropical mirror symmetry theorem for descendant Gromov-Witten invariants of the elliptic curve, generalizing the tropical mirror symmetry theorem for Hurwitz numbers of the elliptic curve, Theorem 2.20 in [Böhm J., Bringmann K., Buchholz A., Markwig H., J. Reine Angew. Math. 732 (2017), 211-246, arXiv:1309.5893]. For the case of the elliptic curve, the tropical version of mirror symmetry holds on a fine level and easily implies the equality of the generating series of descendant Gromov-Witten invariants of the elliptic curve to Feynman integrals. To prove tropical mirror symmetry fo…
Generalizing supertropical algebras, we present a "layered" structure, "sorted" by a semiring which permits varying ghost layers, and indicate how it is more amenable than the "standard" supertropical construction in factorizations of polynomials, description of varieties, properties of the resultant, and for mathematical analysis and calculus, in particular with respect to multiple roots of polynomials. Explicit examples and comparisons are given for various sorting semirings such as the natural numbers and the positive rational numbers, and we see how this theory relates to some recent devel…
In this paper we study a construction of algebraic curves from combinatorial data. In the study of algebraic curves through degeneration, graphs usually appear as the dual intersection graph of the central fiber. Properties of such graphs can be encoded in so-called tropical curves. Our main concern is the relation between algebraic curves and tropical curves where the deformation problem is obstructed. Particular emphasis is put on the role of higher valent vertices of tropical curves, which has not been developed well so far in spite of its importance in this area of study. We will give a ge…
We study a space of genus $g$ stable, $n$-marked tropical curves with total edge length $1$. Its rational homology is identified both with top-weight cohomology of the complex moduli space $M_{g,n}$ and with the homology of a marked version of Kontsevich's graph complex, up to a shift in degrees. We prove a contractibility criterion that applies to various large subspaces. From this we derive a description of the homotopy type of the tropical moduli space for $g = 1$, the top weight cohomology of $M_{1,n}$ as an $S_n$-representation, and additional calculations for small $(g,n)$. We also deduc…
We prove three fundamental properties of counting holomorphic cylinders in log Calabi-Yau surfaces: positivity, integrality and the gluing formula. Positivity and integrality assert that the numbers of cylinders, defined via virtual techniques, are in fact nonnegative integers. The gluing formula roughly says that cylinders can be glued together to form longer cylinders, and the number of longer cylinders equals the product of the numbers of shorter cylinders. Our approach uses Berkovich geometry, tropical geometry, deformation theory and the ideas in the proof of associativity relations of Gr…
An enumerative problem on a variety $V$ is usually solved by reduction to intersection theory in the cohomology of a compactification of $V$. However, if the problem is invariant under a "nice" group action on $V$ (so that $V$ is spherical), then many authors suggested a better home for intersection theory: the direct limit of the cohomology rings of all equivariant compactifications of $V$. We call this limit the affine cohomology of $V$ and construct affine characteristic classes of subvarieties of a complex torus, taking values in the affine cohomology of the torus. This allows us to make t…
Floor diagrams are a class of weighted oriented graphs introduced by E. Brugalle and the second author. Tropical geometry arguments lead to combinatorial descriptions of (ordinary and relative) Gromov-Witten invariants of projective spaces in terms of floor diagrams and their generalizations. In a number of cases, these descriptions can be used to obtain explicit (direct or recursive) formulas for the corresponding enumerative invariants. In particular, we use this approach to enumerate rational curves of given degree passing through a collection of points on the complex plane and having maxim…
