The stringy Euler number and E-function of Batyrev for log terminal singularities can in dimension 2 also be considered for a normal surface singularity with all log discrepancies nonzero in its minimal log resolution. Here we obtain a structure theorem for resolution graphs with respect to log discrepancies, implying that these stringy invariants can be defined in a natural way, even when some log discrepancies are zero, and more precisely for all normal surface singularities which are not log canonical. We also show that the stringy E-functions of log terminal surface singularities are polynomials (with rational powers) with nonnegative coefficients, yielding well defined (rationally graded) stringy Hodge numbers.
We provide a gentle introduction to arc spaces, motivic integration and stringy invariants. We explain the basic concepts and first results, including the p-adic number theoretic pre-history, and we provide concrete examples. The text is a slightly adapted version of the 'extended abstract' of the author's talks at the 12th MSJ-IRI "Singularity Theory and Its Applications" (2003) in Sapporo. At the end we included a list of various recent results.
The stringy Euler number and stringy E-function are interesting invariants of log terminal singularities, introduced by Batyrev. He used them to formulate a topological mirror symmetry test for pairs of certain Calabi-Yau varieties, and to show a version of the McKay correspondence. It is a natural question whether one can extend these invariants beyond the log terminal case. Assuming the Minimal Model Program, we introduce very general stringy invariants, associated to 'almost all' singularities, more precisely to all singularities which are not strictly log canonical. They specialize to the …
We introduce a formal integral on the system of varieties mapping properly and birationally to a given one, with value in an associated Chow group. Applications include comparisons of Chern numbers of birational varieties, new birational invariants, `stringy' Chern classes, and a `celestial' zeta function specializing to the topological zeta function. In its simplest manifestation, the integral gives a new expression for Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes of possibly singular varieties, placing them into a context in which a `change of variable' formula holds. The formalism has points of contac…
We are interested in stringy invariants of singular projective algebraic varieties satisfying a strict monotonicity with respect to elementary birational modifications in the Mori program. We conjecture that the algebraic stringy Euler number is one of such invariants. In the present paper, we prove this conjecture for varieties having an action of a connected algebraic group G and admitting equivariant desingularizations with only finitely many G-orbits. In particular, we prove our conjecture for arbitrary projective spherical varieties.
The stringy E-function for normal irreducible complex varieties with at worst log terminal singularities was introduced by Batyrev. It is defined by data from a log resolution. If the variety is projective and Gorenstein and the stringy E-function is a polynomial, Batyrev also defined the stringy Hodge numbers as a generalization of the Hodge numbers of nonsingular projective varieties, and conjectured that they are nonnegative. We compute explicit formulae for the contribution of an A-D-E singularity to the stringy E-function in arbitrary dimension. With these results we can say when the stri…
In this paper we determine the stringy motivic volume of log terminal horospherical $G$-varieties of complexity one, where $G$ is a connected reductive linear algebraic group. The stringy motivic volume of a log terminal variety is an invariant of singularities which was introduced by Batyrev and plays an important role in mirror symmetry for Calabi--Yau varieties. A horospherical $G$-variety of complexity one is a normal $G$-variety which is equivariantly birational to a product $C \times G/H$, where $C$ is a smooth projective curve and the closed subgroup $H$ contains a maximal unipotent sub…
We investigate aspects of certain stringy invariants of singular elliptic fibrations which arise in engineering Grand Unified Theories in F-theory. In particular, we exploit the small resolutions of the total space of these fibrations provided recently in the physics literature to compute `stringy characteristic classes', and find that numerical invariants obtained by integrating such characteristic classes are predetermined by the topology of the base of the elliptic fibration. Moreover, we derive a simple (dimension independent) formula for pushing forward powers of the exceptional divisor o…
Stringy invariants for abelian character varieties
Faculdade de Ciências, Univ. de Lisboa（里斯本大学理学院）；Facultad de Ciencias Matemáticas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid（马德里康普顿斯大学数学科学学院）；Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (CSIC-UAM-UCM-UC3M)（数学科学研究所）；Universidad Politécnica de Madrid（马德里理工大学）
We study how Gromov-Witten invariants of projective 3-folds transform under a standard flop and a small extremal transition in the algebro-geometric setting from the recent development of algebraic relative Gromov-Witten theory and its applications. This gives an algebro-geometric account of Witten's wall-crossing formula for correlation functions of the descendant nonlinear sigma model in adjacent geometric phases of a gauge linear sigma model and of the symplectic approach in an earlier work of An-Min Li and Yongbin Ruan on the same problem. A terse account from the stringy and the symplecti…
We define the singular elliptic genus for arbitrary normal surfaces, prove that it is a birational invariant, and show that it generalizes the singular elliptic genus of Borisov and Libgober and the stringy $χ_y$ genus of Batyrev and Veys.
We introduce the notion of stringy E-function for an arbitrary normal irreducible algebraic variety X with at worst log-terminal singularities. We prove some basic properties of stringy E-functions and compute them explicitly for arbitrary Q-Gorenstein toric varieties. Using stringy E-functions, we propose a general method to define stringy Hodge numbers for projective algebraic varieties with at worst Gorenstein canonical singularities. This allows us to formulate the topological mirror duality test for arbitrary Calabi-Yau varieties with canonical singularities. In Appendix we explain non-Ar…
We define the singular orbifold elliptic genus and $E$-function for all normal surfaces without strictly log-canonical singularities, and prove the analogue of the McKay correspondence in this setting. Our invariants generalize the stringy invariants defined by Willem Veys for this class of singularities. We show that the ability to define these invariants is closely linked to rigidity phenomena associated to the elliptic genus.
We perform an exact computation of the gauged linear sigma model associated to a D1-D5 brane system on a resolved A_1 singularity. This is accomplished via supersymmetric localization on the blown-up two-sphere. We show that in the blow-down limit C^2/Z_2 the partition function reduces to the Nekrasov partition function evaluating the equivariant volume of the instanton moduli space. For finite radius we obtain a tower of world-sheet instanton corrections, that we identify with the equivariant Gromov-Witten invariants of the ADHM moduli space. We show that these corrections can be encoded in a…
Given a convex polytope, we define its geometric spectrum, a stacky version of Batyrev's stringy E-functions, and we prove a stacky version of a formula of Libgober and Wood about the E-polynomial of a smooth projective variety. As an application, we get a closed formula for the variance of the geometric spectrum and a Noether's formula for two dimensional Fano polytopes (polytopes whose vertices are primitive lattice points). We also show that this geometric spectrum is equal to the algebraic spectrum of the polytope (the spectrum at infinity of a tame Laurent polynomial whose Newton polytope…
We explicitly construct a $V$-normal crossing Gorenstein canonical model of the relative symmetric products of a local semistable degeneration of surfaces without a triple point by means of toric geometry. Using this model, we calculate the stringy $E$-polynomial of the relative symmetric product. We also construct a minimal model of degeneration of Hilbert schemes explicitly.
We show that the stringy Kähler moduli space of a generic genus one curve of degree $N$, for $N\le 5$, is the $Γ_1(N)$ modular curve $X_1(N)$. This implies a correspondence between the cusps of the modular curves and certain large volume limits in the stringy Kähler moduli spaces of genus one fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds with $N$-sections. Using Higgs transitions in M-theory and F-theory as well as modular properties of the topological string partition function, we identify these large volume limits with elements of the Tate-Shafarevich group of the genus one fibration. Singular elements appea…
In 1985, physicists Dixon, Harvey, Vafa and Witten studied string theories on Calabi-Yau orbifolds (cf. [DHVW]). An interesting discovery in their paper was the prediction that a certain physicist's Euler number of the orbifold must be equal to the Euler number of any of its crepant resolutions. This was soon related to the so called McKay correspondence in mathematics (cf. [McK]). Later developments include stringy Hodge numbers (cf. [Z], [BD]), mirror symmetry of Calabi-Yau orbifolds (cf. [Ro]), and most recently the Gromov-Witten invariants of symplectic orbifolds (cf. [CR1-2]). One common …
Given a submanifold Z inside X, let Y be the blow-up of X along Z. When the normal bundle of Z in X is convex with a minor assumption, we prove that genus-zero GW-invariants of Y with cohomology insertions from X, are identical to GW-invariants of X. Under the same hypothesis, a vanishing theorem is also proved. An example to which these two theorems apply is when the normal bundle is generated by global sections. These two main theorems do not hold for arbitrary blow-ups, and counter-examples are included.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive linear algebraic group. We consider the normal $G$-varieties with horospherical orbits. In this short note, we provide a criterion to determine whether these varieties have at most canonical, log canonical or terminal singularities in the case where they admit an algebraic curve as rational quotient. This result seems to be new in the special setting of torus actions with general orbits of codimension $1$. For the given $G$-variety $X$, our criterion is expressed in terms of a weight function $ω_{X}$ that is constructed from the set of $G$-invariant valuations …
In this paper we introduce a notion of symplectic normal crossings divisor V and define the GW invariant of a symplectic manifold X relative such a divisor. Our definition includes normal crossings divisors from algebraic geometry. The invariants we define in this paper are key ingredients in symplectic sum type formulas for GW invariants, and extend those defined in our previous joint work with T.H. Parker [IP1], which covered the case V was smooth. The main step is the construction of a compact moduli space of relatively stable maps into the pair (X, V) in the case V is a symplectic normal c…
We study a useful numerical invariant of normal surface singularities, introduced recently by T. Kawachi. Using this invariant, we give a quick proof of the (well-known) fact that all log-canonical surface singularities are either elliptic Gorenstein or rational (without assuming a priori that they are Q-Gorenstein). The main result is a criterion (stated in terms of Kawachi's invariant) regarding global generation of adjoint linear systems on normal surfaces with boundary. Such results can be used in proving effective estimates for global generation on singular threefolds. The theorem of Ein-…
Let $B$ be a Noetherian normal local ring, and $G\subset\Aut(B)$ a cyclic group of local automorphisms of prime order. Let $A$ be the ring of $G$-invariants of $B$, assume that $A$ is Noetherian. We study the invariant morphism; in particular, we prove that $B$ is a monogenous $A$-algebra if and only if the augmentation ideal of $B$ is principal. If in particular $B$ is regular, we prove that $A$ is regular if the augmentation ideal of $B$ is principal.
We present an Arakelov theoretic version of the deformation to the normal cone. In particular, the geometric data is enriched with a deformation of a Hermitian line bundle. We introduce numerical invariants called arithmetic Hilbert invariants and prove the conservation of these invariants along the deformation. In a following article, this conservation of number theorem will allow a demonstration of the arithmetic Hilbert-Samuel theorem.
In the present article we work out a relative setup of generic structures on surface singularities. We fix an analytic type on a subgraph of a rational homology sphere resolution graph $\mathcal{T}$ and we choose a relatively generic normal surface singularity $\tX$ with resolution graph $\mathcal{T}$. We provide formulae for the geometric genus and the analytical Poincaré series of $\tX$. We determine the base point structure of natural line bundles on $\tX$ and give a lower bound on the multiplicity of $\tX$ which is expected to be sharp. We prove similar results about cohomology numbers of …
