This paper contains a preliminary study of the monodromy of certain fourth order differential equations, that were called of Calabi-Yau type in math.NT/0402386. Some of these equations can be interpreted as the Picard-Fuchs equations of a Calabi-Yau manifold with one complex modulus, which links up the observed integrality to the conjectured integrality of the Gopakumar-Vafa invariants. A natural question is if in the other cases such a geometrical interpretation is also possible. Our investigations of the monodromies are intended as a first step in answering this question. We use a numerical approach combined with some ideas from homological mirror symmetry to determine the monodromy for some further one-parameter models. Furthermore, we present a conjectural identification of the Picard-Fuchs equation for 5 new examples from Borcea's list and one constructed by Tonoli and conjecture the existence of some new Calabi-Yau three folds. The paper does not contain any theorems or proofs but is, we think, nevertheless of interest.
In this survey, we discuss the state of art about the monodromy property for Calabi-Yau varieties. We explain what is the monodromy property for Calabi-Yau varieties and then discuss some examples of Calabi-Yau varieties that satisfy this property. After this recap, we discuss a possible approach to future research in this area.
A well-known theorem of Kulikov, Persson and Pinkham states that a degeneration of a family of K3-surfaces with trivial monodromy can be completed to a smooth family. We give a simple example that an analogous statement does not hold for Calabi-Yau threefolds.
We study mirror symmetry of complete intersection Calabi-Yau manifolds which have birational automorphisms of infinite order. We observe that movable cones in birational geometry are transformed, under mirror symmetry, to the monodromy nilpotent cones which are naturally glued together.
In this paper we are concerned with the monodromy of Picard-Fuch differential equations associated with one-parameter families of Calabi-Yau threefolds. Our results show that in the hypergeometric cases the matrix representations of monodromy relative to the Frobenius bases can be expressed in terms of the geometric invariants of the underlying Calabi-Yau threefolds. This phenomenon is also verified numerically for other families of Calabi-Yau threefolds in the paper. Furthermore, we discover that under a suitable change of bases the monodromy groups are contained in certain congruence subgrou…
Doran and Morgan have introduced certain rational basis for the monodromy group of the Picard-Fuchs operator of a hypergeometric family of Calabi-Yau threefolds. In this paper we compute numerically the transition matrix between a generalization of the Doran-Morgan basis and the Frobenius basis at a half-conifold point of a one-parameter family of double octic Calabi-Yau threefolds. We identify the entries of this matrix as rational functions in the special values $L(f,1)$ and $L(f,2)$ of the corresponding modular form $f$ and one constant. We also present related results concerning the rank o…
We define an iterative construction that produces a family of elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau $n$-folds with section from a family of elliptic Calabi-Yau varieties of one dimension lower. Parallel to the geometric construction, we iteratively obtain for each family with a point of maximal unipotent monodromy, normalized to be at t=0, its Picard-Fuchs operator and a closed-form expression for the period holomorphic at t=0, through a generalization of the classical Euler transform for hypergeometric functions. In particular, our construction yields one-parameter families of elliptically fibered …
Recently J.C. Rohde constructed families of Calabi-Yau threefolds parametrised by Shimura varieties. The points corresponding to threefolds with CM are dense in the Shimura variety and, moreover, the families do not have boundary points with maximal unipotent monodromy. Both aspects are of interest for Mirror Symmetry. In this paper we discuss one of Rohde's examples in detail and we explicitly give the Picard-Fuchs equation for this one dimensional family.
We propose a monodromy invariant pairing $K_{hol}(X) \otimes H_3(X^\vee,\ZZ) \to \IQ$ for a mirror pair of Calabi-Yau manifolds, $(X,X^\vee)$. This pairing is utilized implicitly in the previous calculations of the prepotentials for Gromov-Witten invariants. After identifying the pairing explicitly we interpret some hypergeometric series from the viewpoint of homological mirror symmetry due to Kontsevich. Also we consider the local mirror symmetry limit to del Pezzo surfaces in Calabi-Yau 3-folds.
Assume that the local universal deformation of a Calabi-Yau 3-manifold X has an automorphism which does not act by 1 or -1 on the third cohomology. We show that the $F^2$ bundle in the Variation of Hodge structures of each maximal family containing $X$ is constant in this case. Thus X cannot be a fiber of a maximal family with maximally unipotent monodromy, if such an automorphism exists. Moreover we classify the possible actions of such an automorphism on the third cohomology, construct examples and show that the period domain is a complex ball containing a dense set of complex multiplication…
The aim of this paper is to construct families of Calabi--Yau 3-folds without boundary points with maximal unipotent monodromy and to describe the variation of their Hodge structures. In particular five families are constructed. In all these cases the variation of the Hodge structures of the Calabi--Yau 3-folds is basically the variation of the Hodge structures of a family of curves. This allows us to write explicitly the Picard--Fuchs equation for the 1-dimensional families. These Calabi--Yau 3-folds are desingularizations of quotients of the product of a (fixed) elliptic curve and a K3 surfa…
We study D-branes on smooth noncompact toric Calabi-Yau manifolds that are resolutions of abelian orbifold singularities. Such a space has a distinguished basis {S_i} for the compactly supported K-theory. Using local mirror symmetry we demonstrate that the S_i have simple transformation properties under monodromy; in particular, they are the objects that generate monodromy around the principal component of the discriminant locus. One of our examples, the toric resolution of C^3/(Z_2 x Z_2), is a three parameter model for which we are able to give an explicit solution of the GKZ system.
We analyze the link between the occurrence of massless B-type D-branes for specific values of moduli and monodromy around such points in the moduli space. This allows us to propose a classification of all massless B-type D-branes at any point in the moduli space of Calabi-Yau's. This classification then justifies a previous conjecture due to Horja for the general form of monodromy. Our analysis is based on using monodromies around points in moduli space where a single D-brane becomes massless to generate monodromies around points where an infinite number become massless. We discuss the various…
In this paper we study quantum del Pezzo surfaces belonging to a certain class. In particular we introduce the generalised Sklyanin-Painlevé algebra and characterise its PBW/PHS/Koszul properties. This algebra contains as limiting cases the generalised Sklyanin algebra, Etingof-Ginzburg and Etingof-Oblomkov-Rains quantum del Pezzo and the quantum monodromy manifolds of the Painlevé equations.
We study in detail the family of Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces defined by x_1+...+x_n+1/(x_1...x_n)=t over a finite field k. We determine its local and global monodromy and the trivial factors of its moment zeta function and Dwork's unit root zeta function.
We determine the index of five of the $7$ hypergeometric Calabi-Yau operators that have finite index in $Sp_4(\mathbb{Z})$ and in two cases give a complete description of the monodromy group. Furthermore we found six non-hypergeometric Calabi-Yau operators with finite index in $Sp_4(\mathbb{Z})$, most notably a case where the index is one.
Monodromy of Calabi-Yau threefold flops via grade restriction rule and their quantum Kahler moduli
Korea Institute for Advanced Study（韩国高等研究院）；Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Fudan University（复旦大学数学交叉科学中心）；Shanghai Institute for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences（上海数学与交叉科学研究院）
It is a fundamental problem in geometry to decide which moduli spaces of polarized algebraic varieties are embedded by their period maps as Zariski open subsets of locally Hermitian symmetric domains. In the present work we prove that the moduli space of Calabi-Yau threefolds coming from eight planes in $\mathbb{P}^3$ does {\em not} have this property. We show furthermore that the monodromy group of a good family is Zariski dense in the corresponding symplectic group. Moreover, we study a natural sublocus which we call hyperelliptic locus, over which the variation of Hodge structures is natura…
We describe a variation of Dworks unit-root method to determine the degree four Frobenius polynomial for members of a 1-modulus Calabi-Yau family over $\mathbb{P}^1$ in terms of the holomorphic period near a point of maximal unipotent monodromy. The method is illustrated on a couple of examples.
We give an algebraic characterization of Picard-Fuchs operators attached to families of Calabi-Yau manifolds with a point of maximally unipotent monodromy and discuss possibilities for their differential Galois groups.
The quintic-mirror family is a well-known one-parameter family of Calabi-Yau threefolds. A complete description of the global monodromy group of this family is not yet known. In this paper, we give a presentation of the global monodromy group in the general linear group of degree 4 over the ring of integers modulo 5.
We describe examples of computations of Picard-Fuchs operators for families of Calabi-Yau manifolds based on the expansion of a period near a conifold point. We find examples of operators without a point of maximal unipotent monodromy, thus answering a question posed by J. Rohde.
We review the idea of Pi-stability for B-type D-branes on a Calabi-Yau manifold. It is shown that the octahedral axiom from the theory of derived categories is an essential ingredient in the study of stability. Various examples in the context of the quintic Calabi-Yau threefold are studied and we plot the lines of marginal stability in several cases. We derive the conjecture of Kontsevich, Horja and Morrison for the derived category version of monodromy around a "conifold" point. Finally, we propose an application of these ideas to the study of supersymmetry breaking.
We study tuples of matrices with rigidity index two in $\Sp_4(\mathbb{C})$, which are potentially induced by differential operators of Calabi-Yau type. The constructions of those monodromy tuples via algebraic operations and middle convolutions and the related constructions on the level differential operators lead to previously known and new examples.
In this work we study the quantum periods together with their Picard-Fuchs differential equations of Calabi-Yau fourfolds. In contrast to Calabi-Yau threefolds, we argue that the large volume points of Calabi-Yau fourfolds generically are regular singular points of the Picard-Fuchs operators of non-maximally unipotent monodromy. We demonstrate this property in explicit examples of Calabi-Yau fourfolds with a single Kahler modulus. For these examples we construct integral quantum periods and study their global properties in the quantum Kahler moduli space with the help of numerical analytic con…
We classify all $\Sp_4(\mathbb{C})$-rigid, quasi-unipotent local systems and show that all of them have geometric origin. Furthermore, we investigate which of those having a maximal unipotent element are induced by fourth order Calabi-Yau operators. Via this approach, we reconstruct all known Calabi-Yau operators inducing a $\Sp_4(\mathbb{C})$-rigid monodromy tuple and obtain closed formulae for special solutions of them.
In part I of this paper we constructed certain fibered Calabi-Yaus by a quotient construction in the context of weighted hypersurfaces. In this paper look at the case of K3 fibrations more closely and study the singular fibers which occur. This differs from previous work since the fibrations we discuss have constant modulus, and the singular fibers have torsion monodromy.
To a one-parameter family of Calabi-Yau threefolds, we can associate the extended period map by the log Hodge theory of Kato and Usui. In the present paper, we study the image of a maximally unipotent monodromy point under the extended period map. As an application, we prove the generic Torelli theorem for a large class of one-parameter families of Calabi-Yau threefolds.
We study the Zariski closure of the monodromy group $\mathbf{Mon}$ of Lauricella's hypergeometric function $F_C$. If the identity component $\mathbf{Mon}^0$ acts irreducibly, then $\overline{\mathbf{Mon}} \cap \mathbf{SL}_{2^n}(\mathbb{C})$ must be one of classical groups $\mathbf{SL}_{2^n}(\mathbb{C}), \mathbf{SO}_{2^n}(\mathbb{C})$ and $\mathbf{Sp}_{2^n}(\mathbb{C})$. We also study Calabi-Yau varieties arising from integral representations of $F_C$.
We show that crystals with the properties of crystalline cohomology of ordinary Calabi-Yau threefolds in characteristic p>0, exhibit a remarkable similarity with the well known structure on the cohomology of complex Calabi-Yau threefolds near a boundary point of the moduli space with maximal unipotent local monodromy. In particular, there are canonical coordinates and an analogue of the prepotential of the Yukawa coupling. Moreover we show p-adic analogues of the integrality properties for the canonical coordinates and the prepotential of the Yukawa coupling, which have been observed in the ex…
We study motivic zeta functions of degenerating families of Calabi-Yau varieties. Our main result says that they satisfy an analog of Igusa's monodromy conjecture if the family has a so-called Galois-equivariant Kulikov model; we provide several classes of examples where this condition is verified. We also establish a close relation between the zeta function and the skeleton that appeared in Kontsevich and Soibelman's non-archimedean interpretation of the SYZ conjecture in mirror symmetry.
This is a survey on motivic zeta functions associated to abelian varieties and Calabi-Yau varieties over a discretely valued field. We explain how they are related to Denef and Loeser's motivic zeta function associated to a complex hypersurface singularity and we investigate the relation between the poles of the zeta function and the eigenvalues of the monodromy action on the tame $\ell$-adic cohomology of the variety. The motivic zeta function allows to generalize many interesting arithmetic invariants from abelian varieties to Calabi-Yau varieties and to compute them explicitly on a model wi…
These are notes from talks of the authors on some explicit examples of families of Calabi-Yau threefolds which are parametrised by a Shimura variety. We briefly review the periods of Calabi-Yau threefolds and we discuss a recent result on Picard-Fuchs equations for threefolds which are hypersurfaces with many automorphisms. Next various examples of families parametrised by Shimura varieties are given. Most of these are due to J.C. Rohde. The examples with an automorphism of order three are given in some detail. We recall that such families do not have maximally unipotent monodromy and that the…
In this paper, we study the analogue of the Shafarevich conjecture for polarized Calabi-Yau varieties. We use variations of Hodge structures and Higgs bundles to establish a criterion for the {\it rigidity} of families. We then apply the criterion to obtain that some important and typical families of Calabi-Yau varieties are rigid, for examples., Lefschetz pencils of Calabi-Yau varieties, {\it strongly degenerated} families (not only for families of Calabi-Yau varieties), families of Calabi-Yau varieties admitting a degeneration with {\it maximal unipotent monodromy}.
We explore some aspects of monodromies of D-branes in the Kahler moduli space of Calabi-Yau compactifications. Here a D-brane is viewed as an object of the derived category of coherent sheaves. We compute all the interesting monodromies in some nontrivial examples and link our work to recent results and conjectures concerning helices and mutations. We note some particular properties of the 0-brane.
In this paper we give a construction of Lagrangian torus fibration for Fermat type quintic \cy hypersurfaces via the method of gradient flow. We also compute the monodromy of the expected special Lagrangian torus fibration and discuss structures of singular fibers.
The aim of this article is to report on recent progress in understanding mirror symmetry for some non-complete intersection Calabi-Yau threefolds. We first construct four new smooth non-complete intersection Calabi-Yau threefolds with h^{1,1}=1, whose existence was previously conjectured by C. van Enckevort and D. van Straten. We then compute the period integrals of candidate mirror families of F. Tonoli's degree 13 Calabi-Yau threefold and three of the new Calabi-Yau threefolds. The Picard-Fuchs equations coincide with the expected Calabi-Yau equations. Some of the mirror families turn out to…
We consider regular Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in $N$-dimensional smooth toric varieties. On such a hypersurface in the neighborhood of the large complex structure limit point we construct a fibration over a sphere $S^{N-1}$ whose generic fibers are tori $T^{N-1}$. Also for certain one-parameter families of such hypersurfaces we show that the monodromy transformation is induced by a translation of the $T^{N-1}$ fibration by a section. Finally we construct a dual fibration and provide some evidence that it describes the mirror family.
We discuss the period geometry and the topological string amplitudes on elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fourfolds in toric ambient spaces. In particular, we describe a general procedure to fix integral periods. Using some elementary facts from homological mirror symmetry we then obtain Bridgelands involution and its monodromy action on the integral basis for non-singular elliptically fibered fourfolds. The full monodromy group contains a subgroup that acts as PSL(2,Z) on the Kähler modulus of the fiber and we analyze the consequences of this modularity for the genus zero and genus one amplitud…
We study the predictions of mirror symmetry for the 1-parameter family of Calabi-Yau 3-folds $\tilde{X}$ with hodge numbers $h^{11}=31,h^{21}=1$ constructed in \cite{BN}. We calculate the Picard-Fuchs differential equation associated to this family, and use it to predict the instanton numbers on the hypothetical mirror. These exhibit a strange vanishing in odd degrees. We also calculate the monodromy action on $H^3(\tilde{X},\QQ)$ and find that it strangely predicts a positive Euler characteristic for its mirror. From a degenerate fiber of our family we construct a new rigid Calabi-Yau 3-fold.…
We study low-degree curves on one-parameter Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces, and their contribution to the space-time superpotential in a superstring compactification with D-branes. We identify all lines that are invariant under at least one permutation of the homogeneous variables, and calculate the inhomogeneous Picard-Fuchs equation. The irrational large volume expansions satisfy the recently discovered algebraic integrality. The bulk of our work is a careful study of the topological integrality of monodromy under navigation around the complex structure moduli space. This is a powerful method to r…
We consider Calabi--Yau 3-folds of Borcea--Voisin type, i.e. Calabi--Yau 3-folds obtained as crepant resolutions of a quotient $(S\times E)/(α_S\times α_E)$, where $S$ is a K3 surface, $E$ is an elliptic curve, $α_S\in {\rm Aut} (S)$ and $α_E\in {\rm Aut}(E)$ act on the period of $S$ and $E$ respectively with order $n=2,3,4,6$. The case $n=2$ is very classical, the case $n=3$ was recently studied by Rohde, the other cases are less known. First we construct explicitly a crepant resolution, $X$, of $(S\times E)/(α_S\times α_E)$ and we compute its Hodge numbers; some pairs of Hodge numbers we fou…
The rank 4 locus of a general skew-symmetric 7x7 matrix gives the pfaffian variety in P^20 which is not defined as a complete intersection. Intersecting this with a general P^6 gives a Calabi-Yau manifold. An orbifold construction seems to give the 1-parameter mirror-family of this. However, corresponding to two points in the 1-parameter family of complex structures, both with maximally unipotent monodromy, are two different mirror-maps: one corresponding to the general pfaffian section, the other to a general intersection of G(2,7) in P^20 with a P^13. Apparently, the pfaffian and G(2,7) sect…
This paper continues the authors' program of studying mirror symmetry via log geometry and toric degenerations, relating affine manifolds with singularities, log Calabi-Yau spaces, and toric degenerations of Calabi-Yaus. The main focus of this paper is the calculation of the cohomology of a Calabi-Yau variety associated to a given affine manifold with singularities B. We show that the Dolbeault cohomology groups of the Calabi-Yau associated to B are described in terms of some cohomology groups of sheaves on B, as expected. This is proved first by calculating the log de Rham and log Dolbeault c…
We report on $25$ families of projective Calabi-Yau threefolds that do not have a point of maximal unipotent monodromy in their moduli space. The construction is based on an analysis of certain pencils of octic arrangements that were found by C. Meyer. There are seven cases where the Picard-Fuchs operator is of order two and $18$ cases where it is of order four. The birational nature of the Picard-Fuchs operator can be used effectively to distinguish between families whose members have the same Hodge numbers.
We formulate general conjectures about the relationship between the A-model connection on the cohomology of a $d$-dimensional Calabi-Yau complete intersection $V$ of $r$ hypersurfaces $V_1, \ldots, V_r$ in a toric variety ${\bf P}_Σ$ and the system of differential operators annihilating the special hypergeometric function $Φ_0$ depending on the fan $Σ$. In this context, the Mirror Symmetry phenomenon can be interpreted as the following twofold characterization of the series $Φ_0$. First, $Φ_0$ is defined by intersection numbers of rational curves in ${\bf P}_Σ$ with the hypersurfaces $V_i$ and…
The F-theory vacuum constructed from an elliptic Calabi-Yau threefold with section yields an effective six-dimensional theory. The Lie algebra of the gauge sector of this theory and its representation on the space of massless hypermultiplets are shown to be determined by the intersection theory of the homology of the Calabi-Yau threefold. (Similar statements hold for M-theory and the type IIA string compactified on the threefold, where there is also a dependence on the expectation values of the Ramond-Ramond fields.) We describe general rules for computing the hypermultiplet spectrum of any F-…
We discuss some mathematical conjectures which have come out of the Dirichlet branes in superstring theory, focusing on the case of supersymmetric branes in Calabi-Yau compactification. This has led to the formulation of a notion of stability for objects in a derived category, contact with Kontsevich's homological mirror symmetry conjecture, and "physics proofs" for many of the subsequent conjectures based on it, such as the representation of Calabi-Yau monodromy by autoequivalences of the derived category.
Assuming the standard framework of mirror symmetry, a conjecture is formulated describing how the diffeomorphism group of a Calabi-Yau manifold Y should act by families of Fourier-Mukai transforms over the complex moduli space of the mirror X. The conjecture generalizes a proposal of Kontsevich relating monodromy transformations and self-equivalences. Supporting evidence is given in the case of elliptic curves, lattice-polarized K3 surfaces and Calabi-Yau threefolds. A relation to the global Torelli problem is discussed.
In this note we study several conditions to be imposed on a mirror symmetry candidate to the generic multi-quasihomogeneous Calabi-Yau variety defined in the product of the quasihomogeneous projective spaces. We propose several properties for a Calabi-Yau complete intersection variety so that its period integrals can be expressed by means of quasihomogeneous weights of its mirror symmetry candidate as it has been suggested by Berglund, Candelas et altri. As a corollary, we see certain duality between the monodromy data and the Poincaré polynomials of the Euler characteristic for the pairs of o…
Fibrewise T-duality (Fourier-Mukai transform) for D-branes on an elliptic Calabi-Yau three-fold $X$ is seen to have an expected adiabatic form for its induced cohomology operation only when an appropriately twisted operation resp. twisted charge is defined. Some differences with the case of $K3$ as well as connections with the spectral cover construction for bundles on $X$ are pointed out. In the context of mirror symmetry Kontsevich's association of line bundle twists (resp. a certain 'diagonal' operation) with monodromies (esp. the conifold monodromy) is made explicit and checked for two exa…
We study a certain family of determinantal quintic hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^{4}$ whose singularities are similar to the well-studied Barth-Nieto quintic. Smooth Calabi-Yau threefolds with Hodge numbers $(h^{1,1},h^{2,1})=(52,2)$ are obtained by taking crepant resolutions of the singularities. It turns out that these smooth Calabi-Yau threefolds are in a two dimensional mirror family to the complete intersection Calabi-Yau threefolds in $\mathbb{P}^{4}\times\mathbb{P}^{4}$ which have appeared in our previous study of Reye congruences in dimension three. We compactify the two dimensional fam…
