We introduce special Lagrangian submanifolds in C^m and in (almost) Calabi-Yau manifolds, and survey recent results on singularities of special Lagrangian submanifolds, and their application to the SYZ Conjecture. The paper is aimed at graduate students in Geometry, String Theorists, and others wishing to learn the subject.
Special Lagrangian m-folds in C^m are defined, and ways of constructing them described. 'Almost Calabi-Yau manifolds' (a generalization of Calabi-Yau manifolds useful in special Lagrangian geometry) are introduced, and the deformation theory, obstruction theory, and moduli spaces of compact special Lagrangian m-folds in (almost) Calabi-Yau m-folds are explained.
Then we consider singular special Lagrangian submanifolds which are locally modelled on special Lagrangian cones with an isolated singularity at 0. Compact singular special Lagrangian submanifolds of this type have a well-behaved deformation theory, and can often be realized as limits of families of compact, nonsingular special Lagrangian submanifolds. Applications of this to the SYZ Conjecture and Mirror Symmetry of Calabi-Yau 3-folds are discussed.
These notes consist of a study of special Lagrangian submanifolds of Calabi-Yau manifolds and their moduli spaces. The particular case of three dimensions, important in string theory, allows us to introduce the notion of gerbes. These offer an appropriate language for describing many significant features of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow approach to mirror symmetry.
This paper gives a leisurely introduction to Calabi-Yau manifolds and special Lagrangian submanifolds from the differential geometric point of view, followed by a survey of recent results on singularities of special Lagrangian submanifolds, and their application to the SYZ Conjecture. It is aimed at graduate students in Geometry, String Theorists, and others wishing to learn the subject, and is designed to be fairly self-contained. It is based on lecture courses given at Nordfjordeid, Norway and MSRI, Berkeley in June and July 2001. We introduce Calabi-Yau m-folds via holonomy groups, Kahler g…
This is a book aimed at graduate students and researchers in symplectic geometry, based on a course I taught in 2019. The primary message is that the base of a Lagrangian torus fibration inherits an integral affine structure, which you can use to "read off" a lot of interesting geometry of the total space. Topics covered include: action-angle coordinates, symplectic reduction, toric manifolds, visible and tropical Lagrangians, almost toric systems, Milnor fibres of cyclic quotient singularities, mutation of polygons, non-toric blow-up, an almost toric view on Lisca's classification of fillings…
We shall construct a moduli space of pairs of Kähler-Einstein structures and special lagrangians and obtain smoothness of the moduli space of these pairs. Further we show that the moduli space of these pairs is locally embedded in a certain relative cohomology group.
This is the first part of the lecture notes that grew out of the special course given during the 2021-2022 academic year. In these lecture notes we present an approach to the fundamental structures of differential geometry that uses the vernacular of sheaves, differential operators and horizontal subbundles.
We study gluings of asymptotically cylindrical special Lagrangian submanifolds in asymptotically cylindrical Calabi--Yau manifolds. We prove both that there is a well-defined gluing map, and, after reviewing the deformation theory for special Lagrangians, prove that this gluing map defines a local diffeomorphism from matching pairs of deformations of asymptotically cylindrical special Lagrangians to deformations of special Lagrangians. We also give some examples of asymptotically cylindrical special Lagrangian submanifolds to which these results apply.
Butscher, D. Lee, Y. Lee, and Joyce constructed a special Lagrangian submanifold by gluing a Lawlor neck into a transverse intersection point of two special Lagrangian submanifolds. We prove a uniqueness theorem for the gluing of flat special Lagrangian tori of real dimension 3 in a flat complex torus of complex dimension 3.
In this paper, which is a natural continuation of our previous paper math.DG/0504557, we describe some special Lagrangians of cohomogeneity one in the resolved conifold. Our main result gives a foliation of the resolved conifold by T^2-invariant special Lagrangians, where the generic leaf is topologically T^2 X R. We also obtain a family of SO(3)-invariant special Lagrangians. These special Lagrangian families in both the deformed and the resolved conifold approach asymptotically the same special Lagrangian cones in the conifold.
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a special Lagrangian submanifold in C^n constructed by Lawlor being also special Lagrangian in C^n with the Fubini-Study form.
In this survey paper, we briefly review various aspects of the SYZ approach to mirror symmetry for non-Calabi-Yau varieties, focusing in particular on Lagrangian fibrations and wall-crossing phenomena in Floer homology. Various examples are presented, some of them new.
We construct smooth families of compact special Lagrangian submanifolds embedded in some toric hyper-K\"ahler manifolds, which never become holomorphic Lagrangian submanifolds via any hyper-Kähler rotations. These families converge to special Lagrangian immersions with self-intersection points in the sense of current. To construct them, we apply the desingularization method developed by Joyce.
In this paper we describe the cohomogeneity one special Lagrangian 3-folds in the cotangent bundle of the 3-sphere, also known in the physics literature as a deformed conifold. Our main result gives a global foliation of the deformed conifold by T^2-invariant special Lagrangian 3-folds, where the generic leaf is topologically T^2 X R. In the limit, these special Lagrangians asymptotically approach a special Lagrangian cone on a torus in the conifold. Using moment map techniques we also recover the family of SO(n)-invariant special Lagrangian n-folds in the cotangent bundle of the n-sphere obta…
This is the first in a series of papers on special Lagrangian submanifolds in C^m. We study special Lagrangian submanifolds in C^m with large symmetry groups, and give a number of explicit constructions. Our main results concern special Lagrangian cones in C^m invariant under a subgroup G in SU(m) isomorphic to U(1)^{m-2}. By writing the special Lagrangian equation as an o.d.e. in G-orbits and solving the o.d.e., we find a large family of distinct, G-invariant special Lagrangian cones on T^{m-1} in C^m. These examples are interesting as local models for singularities of special Lagrangian subm…
We construct some examples of special Lagrangian submanifolds and Lagrangian self-similar solutions in almost Calabi-Yau cones over toric Sasaki manifolds. For example, for any integer g>0, we can construct a real 6 dimensional Calabi-Yau cone M_g and a 3 dimensional special Lagrangian submanifold L^1_g in M_g which is diffeomorphic to the product of a closed surface of genus g and the real line R, and a 3 dimensional compact Lagrangian self-shrinker L^2_g in M_g which is diffeomorphic to the product of the closed surface of genus g and a circle S^1.
In this paper, the relationship between the existence of special lagrangian submanifolds and the collapsing of Calabi-Yau manifolds is studied. First, special lagrangian fibrations are constructed on some regions of bounded curvature and sufficiently collapsed in Ricci-flat Calabi-Yau manifolds. Then, in the opposite direction,it is shown that the existence of special lagrangian submanifolds with small volume implies the collapsing of some regions in the ambient Calabi-Yau manifolds.
In this paper we construct all smooth torus fibres of the generalized special Lagrangian torus fibrations for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties near the large complex limit.
We derive formulas for the mean curvature of special Lagrangian 3-folds in the general case where the ambient 6-manifold has intrinsic torsion. Consequently, we are able to characterize those SU(3)-structures for which every special Lagrangian 3-fold is a minimal submanifold. In the process, we obtain an obstruction to the local existence of special Lagrangian 3-folds.
We exhibit infinitely many, explicit special Lagrangian isolated singularities that admit no asymptotically conical special Lagrangian smoothings. The existence/ nonexistence of such smoothings is an important component of the current efforts to understand which singular special Lagrangians arise as limits of smooth special Lagrangians. We also use soft methods from symplectic geometry (the relative version of the h--principle) and tools from algebraic topology to prove (both positive and negative) results about Lagrangian desingularizations of Lagrangian submanifolds with isolated singulariti…
This article explores special Lagrangian submanifolds in $\mathbb{CP}^3$, viewed as a nearly Kähler manifold, from two different perspectives. Intrinsically, using a moving frame set-up, and extrinsically, using $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ moment-type maps. We describe new homogeneous examples, from both perspectives, and classify totally geodesic special Lagrangian submanifolds. We show that every special Lagrangian in $\mathbb{CP}^3$, or the flag manifold $\mathbb{F}_{1,2}(\mathbb{C}^3)$ admitting a symmetry of an $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ subgroup of nearly Kähler automorphisms is automatically homogeneous.
We introduce a notion of vanishing Maslov index for lagrangian varifolds and lagrangian integral cycles in a Calabi-Yau manifold. We construct mass-decreasing flows of lagrangian varifolds and lagrangian cycles which satisfy this condition. The flow of cycles converges, at infinite time, to a sum of special lagrangian cycles (possibly with differing phases). We use the flow of cycles to obtain the fact that special lagrangian cycles generate the part of the lagrangian homology which lies in the image of the Hurewicz homomorphism. We also establish a weak version of a conjecture of Thomas-Yau r…
The SYZ Conjecture explains Mirror Symmetry between mirror Calabi-Yau 3-folds M,M' in terms of special Lagrangian fibrations f : M --> B and f' : M' --> B over the same base B, whose fibres are dual 3-tori, except for singular fibres. One of the main problems in proving the SYZ Conjecture (or even in finding the right statement of it) is that the singularities of special Lagrangian 3-folds and fibrations are poorly understood. This paper studies the singularities of special Lagrangian fibrations. Our main rigorous results are the construction of examples of special Lagrangian fibrations on ope…
We make a conjecture about mean curvature flow of Lagrangian submanifolds of Calabi-Yau manifolds, expanding on \cite{Th}. We give new results about the stability condition, and propose a Jordan-Hölder-type decomposition of (special) Lagrangians. The main results are the uniqueness of special Lagrangians in hamiltonian deformation classes of Lagrangians, under mild conditions, and a proof of the conjecture in some cases with symmetry: mean curvature flow converging to Shapere-Vafa's examples of SLags.
This paper extends to dimension 4 the results in the article "Second Order Families of Special Lagrangian 3-folds" by Robert Bryant. We consider the problem of classifying the special Lagrangian 4-folds in C^4 whose fundamental cubic at each point has a nontrivial stabilizer in SO(4). Points on special Lagrangian 4-folds where the SO(4)-stabilizer is nontrivial are the analogs of the umbilical points in the classical theory of surfaces. In proving existence for the families of special Lagrangian 4-folds, we used the method of exterior differential systems in Cartan-Kahler theory. This method i…
We construct examples of cohomogeneity one special Lagrangian submanifolds in the cotangent bundle over the complex projective space, whose Calabi-Yau structure was given by Stenzel. For each example, we describe the condition of special Lagrangian as an ordinary differential equation. Our method is based on a moment map technique and the classification of cohomogeneity one actions on the complex projective space classified by Takagi.
We study special Lagrangian cones in $\C^n$ with isolated singularities. Our main result constructs an infinite family of special Lagrangian cones in $\C^3$ each of which has a toroidal link. We obtain a detailed geometric description of these tori. We prove a regularity result for special Lagrangian cones in $\C^3$ with a spherical link -- any such cone must be a plane. We also construct a one-parameter family of asymptotically conical special Lagrangian submanifolds from any special Lagrangian cone.
I point out some very elementary examples of special Lagrangian tori in certain Calabi-Yau manifolds that occur as hypersurfaces in complex projective space. All of these are constructed as real slices of smooth hypersurfaces defined over the reals. This method of constructing special Lagrangian submanifolds is well known. What does not appear to be in the current literature is an explicit description of such examples in which the special Lagrangian submanifold is a 3-torus.
This is the second in a series of papers constructing explicit examples of special Lagrangian submanifolds in C^m. The first paper was math.DG/0008021, which studied special Lagrangian m-folds with large symmetry groups. The third is math.DG/0010036, which uses ideas from this paper to construct families of special Lagrangian 3-folds in C^3. This paper describes a construction of special Lagrangian m-folds in C^m which are fibred by (m-1)-submanifolds which are quadrics in Lagrangian planes R^m in C^m. Generically they have only discrete symmetry groups. Some of our examples have been previous…
In this paper we construct monodromy representing generalized special Lagrangian torus fibrations for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in toric varieties near the large complex limit.
We show a method to construct a special Lagrangian submanifold L' from a given special Lagrangian submanifold L in a Calabi-Yau manifold with the use of generalized perpendicular symmetries. We use moment maps of the actions of Lie groups, which are not necessarily abelian. By our method, we construct some non-trivial examples in the cotangent bundles of the spheres which are non-flat Calabi-Yau manifolds equipped with the Stenzel metrics.
Using a hyperKähler rotation on complex structures of a Calabi-Yau 2-fold and rolling of an isotropic 2-submanifold in a symplectic 6-manifold, we construct, by gluing, a natural family of immersed Lagrangian deformations of a branched covering of a special Lagrangian 3-sphere in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold and study how they deviate from being deformable to a family of special Lagrangian deformations by examining in detail Joyce's criteria on this family. The result suggests a potential image-support rigidity of A-branes that wrap around a special Lagrangian 3-sphere in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold, which res…
We construct new special Lagrangian submanifolds in complex Euclidean space using a pair of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in odd-dimensional spheres and certain Lagrangian surface belonging to a family that can be considered as a generalization of the special Lagrangian surfaces in complex Euclidean plane. Our examples include those invariant under the standard action of SO(p+1)xSO(q+1) on C^n = C^(p+1) x C^(q+1), n=p+q+2.
We show that if an exact special Lagrangian $N\subset \mathbb{C}^n$ has a multiplicity one, cylindrical tangent cone of the form $\mathbb{R}^{k}\times \mathbf{C}$ where $\mathbf{C}$ is a special Lagrangian cone with smooth, connected link, then this tangent cone is unique provided $\mathbf{C}$ satisfies an integrability condition. This applies, for example, when $\mathbf{C}= \mathbf{C}_{HL}^{m}$ is the Harvey-Lawson $T^{m-1}$ cone for $m\ne 8,9$.
We construct a family of compact almost Calabi--Yau manifolds of complex dimension 3 and therein a corresponding family of compact special Lagrangians with one-point singularities modelled upon that T^2-cone constructed by Harvey--Lawson and characterized by Haskins as a stable T^2-cone in the terminology by Joyce.
The purpose of this paper is to give an application of the gluing theorem for special Lagrangian submanifolds of a Calabi-Yau 3-fold. We proved a gluing theorem before to smooth a codimension-two singularity of a particular special Lagrangian submanifold. In this paper we will show that this theorem can be applied to more general cases where different special Lagrangians are intersecting and gives a way of constructing new special Lagrangian submanifolds. As an example we will show that a smooth special Lagrangian submanifold can be obtained from five copies of RP^3 intersecting pairwise in a …
We prove a number of results relating various measures (volume, Legendrian index, stability index, and spectral curve genus) of the geometric complexity of special Lagrangian $T^2$-cones. We explain how these results fit into a program to understand the "most common" three-dimensional isolated singularities of special Lagrangian submanifolds in almost Calabi-Yau manifolds.
This paper gives an example of special Lagrangian manifold obtained from a hypersurface of a complex Grassmannian with vanishing first Chern class. The obtained manifold is a 1-torus bundle over the two dimensional real projective space. Such manifolds are interesting for mirror symmetry theory. Other examples of the same type are provided at the end of this article.
We obtain a Bernstein theorem for special Lagrangian graphs in n-dimensional complex space for arbitrary n only assuming bounded slope, but no quantitative restriction.
We construct a family of Lagrangian submanifolds in the complex sphere with a SO(n)-invariance property. Among them we find those which are special Lagrangian with respect with the Calabi-Yau structure defined by the Stenzel metric.
We construct singular solutions to special Lagrangian equa- tions with subcritical phases and minimal surface systems. A priori estimate breaking families of smooth solutions are also produced cor- respondingly. A priori estimates for special Lagrangian equations with certain convexity are largely known by now.
We give a simple proof of the local version of a result of R. Bryant, stating that any 3-dimensional Riemannian manifold can be isometrically embedded as a special Lagrangian submanifold in a Calabi-Yau manifold. We refine the theorem proving that a certain class of one-parameter families of metrics on a 3-torus can be isometrically embedded in a Calabi-Yau manifold as a one-parameter family of special Lagrangian submanifolds. We use our examples of one-parameter families to show that the semi-flat metric on the mirror manifold proposed be N. Hitchin is not necessarily Ricci-flat in dimension …
We establish interior regularity for convex viscosity solutions of the special Lagrangian equation. Our result states that all such solutions are real analytic in the interior of the domain.
We derive a Bernstein type result for the special Lagrangian equation, namely, any global convex solution must be quadratic. In terms of minimal surfaces, the result says that any global minimal Lagrangian graph with convex potential must be a hyper-plane.
This is the sixth in a series of papers constructing examples of special Lagrangian m-folds in C^m. We present a construction of special Lagrangian cones in C^3 involving two commuting o.d.e.s, motivated by the first two papers of the series. Then we generalize it to a construction of non-conical special Lagrangian 3-folds in C^3 involving three commuting o.d.e.s. Now special Lagrangian cones in C^3 are linked to the theory of harmonic maps and integrable systems. Harmonic maps from a Riemann surface into complex projective space CP^n are an integrable system, and can be studied and classified…
In an earlier paper, we proved that, under certain hypotheses, the moduli space of an asymptotically cylindrical special Lagrangian submanifold with fixed boundary of an asymptotically cylindrical Calabi-Yau 3-fold is a smooth manifold. Here we prove the analogous result for an asymptotically cylindrical special Lagrangian submanifold with moving boundary.
We prove that certain Riemannian manifolds can be isometrically embedded inside Calabi-Yau manifolds. For example we prove that given any real-analytic one parameter family of Riemannian metrics $g_t$ on a 3-dimensional manifold $Y$ with volume form independent of $t$ and with a real-analytic family of nowhere vanishing harmonic one forms $θ_t$, then $(Y, g_t)$ can be realized as a family of special Lagrangian submanifolds of a Calabi-Yau manifold $X$. We also prove that certain principal torus bundles can be equivariantly and isometrically embedded inside Calabi-Yau manifolds with torus actio…
In this article I show that every special Lagrangian cone in C^3 determines, and is determined by, a primitive harmonic surface in the 6-symmetric space SU_3/SO_2. For cones over tori, this allows us to use the classification theory of harmonic tori to describe the construction of all the corresponding special Lagrangian cones. A parameter count is given for the space of these, and some examples found recently by Joyce are put into this context.
We show the existence of special Lagrangian tori on one family of Borcea-Voisin threefolds. We also construct a family of special Lagrangian submanifolds on the total space of the canonical line bundle of projective spaces.
The branched deformations of immersed compact special Lagrangian submanifolds are studied in this paper. If there exists a nondegenerate $\mathbb{Z}_2$ harmonic 1-form over a special Lagrangian submanifold $L$, we construct a family of immersed special Lagrangian submanifolds $\tilde{L}_t$, that are diffeomorphic to a branched covering of $L$ and $\tilde{L}_t$ convergence to $2L$ as current. This answers a question suggested by Donaldson. Combining with the work of Abouzaid and Imagi, we obtain constraints for the existence of nondegenerate $\mathbb{Z}_2$ harmonic 1-forms.
