This is a follow-up paper of arXiv:1805.00115, where rational curves in surfaces that satisfy general positioned point and cross-ratio conditions were enumerated. A suitable correspondence theorem provided in arXiv:1509.07453 allowed us to use tropical geometry, and, in particular, a degeneration technique called floor diagrams. This correspondence theorem also holds in higher dimension.
In the current paper, we introduce so-called cross-ratio floor diagrams and show that they allow us to determine the number of rational space curves that satisfy general positioned point and cross-ratio conditions. Moreover, graphical contributions are introduced which provide a novel and structured way of understanding multiplicities of floor decomposed curves in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Additionally, so-called condition flows on a tropical curve are used to reflect how conditions imposed on a tropical curve yield different types of edges. This concept is applicable in arbitrary dimension.
Tropical counting tools are useful for many enumerative questions. We count tropical multinodal surfaces using floor plans, looking at the case when two nodes are tropically close together, i.e., unseparated. We generalize tropical floor plans to recover the count of multinodal curves. We then prove that for $δ=2$ or $3$ nodes, tropical surfaces with unseparated nodes contribute asymptotically to the second order term of the polynomial giving the degree of the family of complex projective surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^3$ of degree $d$ with $δ$ nodes. We classify when two nodes in a surface tropicali…
We enumerate rational curves in toric surfaces passing through points and satisfying cross-ratio constraints using tropical and combinatorial methods. Our starting point is arXiv:1509.07453, where a tropical-algebraic correspondence theorem was proved that relates counts of rational curves in toric varieties that satisfy point conditions and cross-ratio constraints to the analogous tropical counts. We proceed in two steps: based on tropical intersection theory we first study tropical cross-ratios and introduce degenerated cross-ratios. Second we provide a lattice path algorithm that produces a…
Tropical geometry is a piecewise linear "shadow" of algebraic geometry. It allows for the computation of several cohomological invariants of an algebraic variety. In particular, its application to enumerative algebraic geometry led to significant progress. In this survey, we give an introduction to tropical geometry techniques for algebraic curve counting problems. We also survey some recent developments, with a particular emphasis on the computation of the degree of the Severi varieties of the complex projective plane and other toric surfaces as well as Hurwitz numbers and applications to rea…
We study moduli spaces of rational graphically stable tropical curves and a refinement given by radial alignment. Given a complete multipartite graph $Γ$, the moduli space of radially aligned $Γ$-stable tropical curves can be given the structure of a balanced fan. This fan structure coincides with the Bergman fan of the cycle matroid of $Γ$.
We compute the $S_n$-equivariant rational homology of the tropical moduli spaces $Δ_{2,n}$ for $n\leq 8$ using a cellular chain complex for symmetric $Δ$-complexes in Sage.
The Severi degree is the degree of the Severi variety parametrizing plane curves of degree d with delta nodes. Recently, Göttsche and Shende gave two refinements of Severi degrees, polynomials in a variable y, which are conjecturally equal, for large d. At y = 1, one of the refinements, the relative Severi degree, specializes to the (non-relative) Severi degree. We give a tropical description of the refined Severi degrees, in terms of a refined tropical curve count for all toric surfaces. We also refine the equivalent count of floor diagrams for Hirzebruch and rational ruled surfaces. Our desc…
We introduce an improved version of rational equivalence in tropical intersection theory which can be seen as a replacement of chapter 8 of our previous article arXiv:0709.3705v2. Using this new definition, rational equivalence is compatible with push-forwards of cycles. Moreover, we prove that every tropical cycle in R^r is equivalent to a uniquely determined affine cycle, called its degree.
We study rational double Hurwitz cycles, i.e. loci of marked rational stable curves admitting a map to the projective line with assigned ramification profiles over two fixed branch points. Generalizing the phenomenon observed for double Hurwitz numbers, such cycles are piecewise polynomial in the entries of the special ramification; the chambers of polynomiality and wall crossings have an explicit and "modular" description. A main goal of this paper is to simultaneously carry out this investigation for the corresponding objects in tropical geometry, underlining a precise combinatorial duality …
We introduce tropical vector bundles, morphisms and rational sections of these bundles and define the pull-back of a tropical vector bundle and of a rational section along a morphism. Afterwards we use the bounded rational sections of a tropical vector bundle to define the Chern classes of this bundle and prove some basic properties of Chern classes. Finally we give a complete classification of all vector bundles on an elliptic curve up to isomorphisms.
We study moduli spaces of rational weighted stable tropical curves, and their connections with the classical Hassett spaces. Given a vector w of weights, the moduli space of tropical w-stable curves can be given the structure of a balanced fan if and only if w has only heavy and light entries. In this case, we can express the moduli space as the Bergman fan of a graphic matroid. Furthermore, we realize the tropical moduli space as a geometric tropicalization, and as a Berkovich skeleton, of the classical moduli space. This builds on previous work of Tevelev, Gibney--Maclagan, and Abramovich--C…
We prove that a semiring isomorphism between the rational function semifields of two tropical curves induces an expansive map between those tropical curves. This semiring isomorphism and the expansive map respect zeros and poles of rational functions with their degrees. As a corollary, we show that the automorphism group of a tropical curve is isomorphic to the $\boldsymbol{T}$-algebra automorphism group of its rational function semifield, where $\boldsymbol{T} := (\boldsymbol{R} \cup \{ -\infty \}, \operatorname{max}, +)$ is the tropical semifield. Finally, we describe all semiring automorphi…
Using Lagrangian Floer theory, we study the tropical geometry of K3 surfaces with general singular fibres. In particular, we give the local models for the type $I_n$, $II$, $III$ and $IV$ singular fibres in the Kodaira's classification and generalize the correspondence theorem between open Gromov-Witten invariants/tropical discs counting to these cases.
We propose a geometric interpretation of Block and Göttsche's refined tropical curve counting invariants in terms of virtual $χ_{-y}$-specializations of motivic measures of semialgebraic sets in relative Hilbert schemes. We prove that this interpretation is correct for linear series of genus 1, and in arbitrary genus after specializing from $χ_{-y}$ to Euler characteristic.
Counts of curves in $\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1$ with fixed contact order with the toric boundary and satisfying point conditions can be determined with tropical methods by Mikhalkin. If we require that our curves intersect the zero- and infinity-section only in points of contact order $1$, but allow arbitrary contact order for the zero- and infinity-fiber, the corresponding numbers reveal beautiful structural properties such as piecewise polynomiality, similar to the case of double Hurwitz numbers counting covers of $\mathbb{P}^1$ with special ramification profiles over zero and infinity …
Block and Göttsche have defined a $q$-number refinement of counts of tropical curves in $\mathbb{R}^2$. Under the change of variables $q=e^{iu}$, we show that the result is a generating series of higher genus log Gromov-Witten invariants with insertion of a lambda class. This gives a geometric interpretation of the Block-Göttsche invariants and makes their deformation invariance manifest.
We prove that the rational function semifield of a tropical curve is finitely generated as a semifield over the tropical semifield $\boldsymbol{T} := ( \boldsymbol{R} \cup \{ - \infty \}, \operatorname{max}, +)$ by giving a specific finite generating set. Also, we show that for a finite harmonic morphism between tropical curves $φ: \varGamma \to \varGamma^{\prime}$, the rational function semifield of $\varGamma$ is finitely generated as a $φ^{\ast}(\operatorname{Rat}(\varGamma^{\prime}))$-algebra, where $φ^{\ast}(\operatorname{Rat}(\varGamma^{\prime}))$ stands for the pull-back of the rational…
In this paper, we define two numbers. One comes from counting tropical curves with a stop and the other is the number of holomorphic discs in toric varieties with Lagrangian boundary condition. Both of these curves should satisfy some matching conditions. We show that these numbers coincide. These numbers can be considered as Gromov-Witten type invariants for holomorphic discs, and they have both similarities and differences to the counting numbers of closed holomorphic curves. We study several aspects of them.
We apply the tropical intersection theory developed by L. Allermann and J. Rau to compute intersection products of tropical Psi-classes on the moduli space of rational tropical curves. We show that in the case of zero-dimensional (stable) intersections, the resulting numbers agree with the intersection numbers of Psi-classes on the moduli space of n-marked rational curves computed in algebraic geometry.
In this note I will explain how relative/log Gromov-Witten invariants of pairs $(X,D)$ with very ample smooth anticanonical divisor $D$ can be computed using algebro-combinatorial objects called scattering diagrams. The underlying principle behind this computational method is a tropical correspondence theorem for non-toric cases, which I will explain briefly. By computing some examples I will give an introduction to a sage code that I wrote for computing scattering diagrams.
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 …
This note is devoted to the definition of moduli spaces of rational tropical curves with n marked points. We show that this space has a structure of a smooth tropical variety of dimension n-3. We define the Deligne-Mumford compactification of this space and tropical $ψ$-class divisors.
Using ideas from the theory of tropical curves and degeneration, we prove that any Fano hypersurface (and more generally Fano complete intersections) is swept by at most quadratic rational curves.
We address the problem of existence of refined (i.e., depending on a formal parameter) tropical enumerative invariants, and we present two new examples of a refined count of rational marked tropical curves. One of the new invariants counts plane rational tropical curves with an unmarked vertex of arbitrary valency. It was motivated by the tropical enumeration of plane cuspidal tropical curves given by Y. Ganor and the author, which naturally led to consideration of plane tropical curves with an unmarked four-valent vertex. Another refined invariant counts rational tropical curves of a given de…
We introduce the notion of families of n-marked smooth rational tropical curves over smooth tropical varieties and establish a one-to-one correspondence between (equivalence classes of) these families and morphisms from smooth tropical varieties into the moduli space of n-marked abstract rational tropical curves.
We define tropical Psi-classes on the moduli space of rational tropical curves in R^2 and consider intersection products of Psi-classes and pull-backs of evaluations on this space. We show a certain WDVV equation which is sufficient to prove that tropical numbers of curves satisfying certain Psi- and evaluation conditions are equal to the corresponding classical numbers. We present an algorithm that generalizes Mikhalkin's lattice path algorithm and counts rational plane tropical curves satisfying certain Psi- and evaluation conditions.
In complex algebraic geometry, the problem of enumerating plane elliptic curves of given degree with fixed complex structure has been solved by R.Pandharipande using Gromov-Witten theory. In this article we treat the tropical analogue of this problem, the determination of the number of tropical elliptic plane curves of degree d and fixed ``tropical j-invariant'' interpolating an appropriate number of points in general position. We show that this number is independent of the position of the points and the value of the j-invariant and that it coincides with the number of complex elliptic curves.…
For a rational map $ϕ$ from a metric graph $\varGamma$ to a tropical projective space $\boldsymbol{TP^n}$ defined by a ratio of rational functions $f_1, \ldots, f_{n + 1}$, an automorphism $σ$ of $\varGamma$ induces a permutation of the coordinates of $\boldsymbol{TP^n}$ if $\{ f_1, \ldots, f_{n + 1} \}$ is $\langle σ\rangle$-invariant. Through this description, we can realize the automorphism group of $Γ$ as ambient automorphism group such as tropical projective general linear group, tropical general linear group and $\boldsymbol{Z}$-linear transformation group of Euclidean space.
In this paper we introduce a refined multiplicity for rational tropical curves in arbitrary dimension, which generalizes the refined multiplicity introduced by F. Block and L. Göttsche in arXiv:1407.2901 . We then prove an invariance statement for the count of rational tropical curves in several enumerative problems using this new refined multiplicity. This leads to the definition of Block-Göttsche polynomials in any dimension.
An algorithm is designed which decomposes a tropical univariate rational function into a composition of tropical binomials and trinomials. When a function is monotone, the composition consists just of binomials. Similar algorithms are designed for decomposing tropical algebraic rational functions being (in the classical language) piece-wise linear functions with rational slopes of their linear pieces. In addition, we provide a criterion when the composition of two tropical polynomials commutes (for classical polynomials a similar question was answered by J.~Ritt).
Tropicalization is a procedure that takes subvarieties of an algebraic torus to balanced weighted rational complexes in space. In this paper, we study the tropicalizations of curves in surfaces in 3-space. These are balanced rational weighted graphs in tropical surfaces. Specifically, we study the `lifting' problem: given a graph in a tropical surface, can one find a corresponding algebraic curve in a surface? We develop specific combinatorial obstructions to lifting a graph by reducing the problem to the question of whether or not one can factor a polynomial with particular support in the cha…
We study the topology of the link $M^{\mathrm{trop}}_{g,n}[1]$ of the tropical moduli spaces of curves when g=2. Tropical moduli spaces can be identified with boundary complexes for $\mathcal{M}_{g,n}$, as shown by Abramovich-Caporaso-Payne, so their reduced rational homology encodes top-weight rational cohomology of the complex moduli spaces $\mathcal{M}_{g,n}$. We prove that $M^{\mathrm{trop}}_{2,n}[1]$ is an $n$-connected topological space whose reduced integral homology is supported in the top two degrees only. We compute the reduced Euler characteristic of $M^{\mathrm{trop}}_{g,n}[1]$ for…
We tropicalize the rational map that takes triples of points in the projective plane to the plane of quadrics passing through these points. The image of its tropicalization is contained in the tropicalization of its image. We identify these objects inside the tropical Grassmannian of planes in projective 5-space, and we explore a small tropical Hilbert scheme.
We introduce tropical Newton-Puiseux polynomials admitting rational exponents. A resolution of a tropical hypersurface is defined by means of a tropical Newton-Puiseux polynomial. A polynomial complexity algorithm for resolubility of a tropical curve is designed. The complexity of resolubility of tropical prevarieties of arbitrary codimensions is studied. Tropical Newton-Puiseux rational functions are introduced, and we prove that any tropical polynomial has a resolution in tropical Newton-Puiseux rational functions (this can be treated as a tropical analog of the algebraic closedness of the f…
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 discuss the classical problem of counting planes tangent to general canonical sextic curves at three points. We determine the number of real tritangents when such a curve is real. We then revisit a curve constructed by Emch with the greatest known number of real tritangents, and conversely construct a curve with very few real tritangents. Using recent results on the relation between algebraic and tropical theta characteristics, we show that the tropicalization of a canonical sextic curve has 15 tritangent planes.
We establish first parts of a tropical intersection theory. Namely, we define cycles, Cartier divisors and intersection products between these two (without passing to rational equivalence) and discuss push-forward and pull-back. We do this first for fans in R^n and then for "abstract" cycles that are fans locally. With regard to applications in enumerative geometry, we finally have a look at rational equivalence and intersection products of cycles and cycle classes in R^n.
We show that the counting of rational curves on a complete toric variety that are in general position to the toric prime divisors coincides with the counting of certain tropical curves. The proof is algebraic-geometric and relies on degeneration techniques and log deformation theory. This generalizes results of Mikhalkin obtained by different methods in the surface case to arbitrary dimensions.
In the first part of this paper, we discuss the notion of irreducibility of cycles in the moduli spaces of n-marked rational tropical curves. We prove that Psi-classes and vital divisors are irreducible, and that locally irreducible divisors are also globally irreducible for n \leq 6. In the second part of the paper, we show that the locus of point configurations in (\R^2)^n in special position for counting rational plane curves (defined in two different ways) can be given the structure a tropical cycle of codimension 1. In addition, we compute explicitly the weights of this cycle.
Starting from certain rational varieties blown-up from (P^1)^N, we construct a tropical, i.e., subtraction-free birational, representation of Weyl groups as a group of pseudo isomorphisms of the varieties. Furthermore, we develop an algebro-geometric framework of tau-functions as defining functions of exceptional divisors on the varieties. In the case where the corresponding root system is of affine type, our construction yields a class of (higher order) q-difference Painleve equations and its algebraic degree grows quadratically.
We investigate the problem of counting tropical genus g curves in g-dimensional tropical abelian varieties. For g = 2, 3, we prove that the tropical count matches the count provided by Göttsche, Bryan-Leung, and Lange-Sernesi in the complex setting.
We describe recent work connecting combinatorics and tropical/non-Archimedean geometry to Diophantine geometry, particularly the uniformity conjectures for rational points on curves and for torsion packets of curves. The method of Chabauty--Coleman lies at the heart of this connection, and we emphasize the clarification that tropical geometry affords throughout the theory of $p$-adic integration, especially to the comparison of analytic continuations of $p$-adic integrals and to the analysis of zeros of integrals on domains admitting monodromy.
We study the intersection of tropical psi-classes on tropical heavy/light Hassett spaces, generalising a result of Kerber--Markwig for tropical moduli spaces of rational stable curves with distinct marked points. Our computation reveals that the weight of a maximal cone in an intersection has a combinatorial intepretation in terms of the underlying tropical curve and it is always nonnegative. In particular, our result specialises to that, in top dimension, the tropical intersection product coincides with its classical counterpart.
We explore the explicit relationship between the descendant Gromov--Witten theory of target curves, operators on Fock spaces, and tropical curve counting. We prove a classical/tropical correspondence theorem for descendant invariants and give an algorithm that establishes a tropical Gromov--Witten/Hurwitz equivalence. Tropical curve counting is related to an algebra of operators on the Fock space by means of bosonification. In this manner, tropical geometry provides a convenient "graphical user interface" for Okounkov and Pandharipande's celebrated GW/H correspondence. An important goal of thi…
