A natural way of generalising Hamiltonian toric manifolds is to permit the presence of generic isolated singularities for the moment map. For a class of such ``almost-toric 4-manifolds'' which admits a Hamiltonian $S^1$-action we show that one can associate a group of convex polygons that generalise the celebrated moment polytopes of Atiyah, Guillemin-Sternberg. As an application, we derive a Duistermaat-Heckman formula demonstrating a strong effect of the possible monodromy of the underlying integrable system.
We derive a new Hamiltonian formulation of Schlesinger equations in terms of the dynamical $r$-matrix structure. The corresponding symplectic form is shown to be the pullback, under the monodromy map, of a natural symplectic form on the extended monodromy manifold. We show that Fock-Goncharov coordinates are log-canonical for the symplectic form on the extended monodromy manifold. Using these coordinates we define the symplectic potential on the monodromy manifold and interpret the isomonodromic tau-function as the generating function of the monodromy map. This, in particular, solves a recent …
This text is a set of lecture notes for a series of four talks given at I.P.A.M., Los Angeles, on March 18-20, 2003. The first lecture provides a quick overview of symplectic topology and its main tools: symplectic manifolds, almost-complex structures, pseudo-holomorphic curves, Gromov-Witten invariants and Floer homology. The second and third lectures focus on symplectic Lefschetz pencils: existence (following Donaldson), monodromy, and applications to symplectic topology, in particular the connection to Gromov-Witten invariants of symplectic 4-manifolds (following Smith) and to Fukaya catego…
For a native gate set which includes all single-qubit gates, we apply results from symplectic geometry to analyze the spaces of two-qubit programs accessible within a fixed number of gates. These techniques yield an explicit description of this subspace as a convex polytope, presented by a family of linear inequalities themselves accessible via a finite calculation. We completely describe this family of inequalities in a variety of familiar example cases, and as a consequence we highlight a certain member of the "XY-family" for which this subspace is particularly large, i.e., for which many tw…
We determine the Lagrangian monodromy group L(T) and the smooth monodromy group S(T) of a Clifford torus T in the symplectic 4-space. We show that L(T) is isomorphic to the infinite dihedral group, and S(T) is generated by three reflections. We give explicit formulas for both groups. We also show that if a Lagrangian torus is smoothly isotopic to a Clifford torus then the smooth isotopy can be chosen to be Lagrangian outside of a disc.
We discuss a symplectic counterpart of the theory of stacky fans. First, we define a stacky polytope and construct the symplectic Deligne-Mumford stack associated to the stacky polytope. Then we establish a relation between stacky polytopes and stacky fans: the stack associated to a stacky polytope is equivalent to the stack associated to a stacky fan if the stacky fan corresponds to the stacky polytope.
We revisit symplectic properties of the monodromy map for Fuchsian systems on the Riemann sphere. We extend previous results of Hitchin, Alekseev-Malkin and Korotkin-Samtleben where it was shown that the monodromy map is a Poisson morphism between the Kirillov-Kostant Poisson structure on the space of coefficients, on one side, and the Goldman bracket on the monodromy character variety on the other. The extension is provided by defining larger spaces on both sides which are equipped with symplectic structures naturally projecting to the canonical ones. On the coefficient side our symplectic st…
We formulate certain sufficient conditions for the symplectic monodromy of an isolated quasihomogeneous singularity to be of infinite order in the relative symplectic mapping class group of the Milnor fibre and give a proof using Maslov classes, stability theory for Lagrangian folds resp. stable Morse theory for generating families as well as algebraic results about relative cohomology of smoothings of isolated singularities. Our conditions being slightly more restrictive than Seidel's, in contrary to Seidel's proof, we do not use Floer theory to derive this result. An alternative approach usi…
We define new Hamiltonian isotopy invariants for a monotone Lagrangian torus embedded in a symplectic 4-manifold. We show that, in the standard symplectic 4-space, these invariants distinguish a monotone Clifford torus from a Chekanov torus.
Let Z be the real part of a K{ä}hler Hamiltonian manifold M. The O'Shea-Sjamaar's Theorem tells us that the moment polytope Delta(Z) corresponds to the anti-invariant part of the Kirwan polytope Delta(M). The purpose of the present paper is to explain how to parameterize the equations of the facets of Delta(Z) in terms of real Ressayre's pairs of Z.
We encode the variation structure of a quasihomogeneous polynomial with an isolated singularity as introduced by Nemethi in a set of spectral flows of the signature operator on the Milnor bundle by varying global elliptic boundary conditions in a specific way using the quasihomogeneous circle action on the Brieskorn lattice. For this, we use adiabatic techniques and well-known results on spectral flow and Maslov index. Furthermore we interpret the inequality of a certain member of this family of spectral flows with a spectral flow induced by a Reeb flow on the boundary of the Milnor fibre as g…
In this research announcement we associate to each convex polytope, possibly nonrational and nonsimple, a family of compact spaces that are stratified by quasifolds, i.e. the strata are locally modelled by $\R^k$ modulo the action of a discrete, possibly infinite, group. Each stratified space is endowed with a symplectic structure and a moment mapping having the property that its image gives the original polytope back. These spaces may be viewed as a natural generalization of symplectic toric varieties to the nonrational setting. We provide here the explicit construction of these spaces, and a…
We construct, for each convex polytope, possibly nonrational and nonsimple, a family of compact spaces that are stratified by quasifolds, i.e. each of these spaces is a collection of quasifolds glued together in an suitable way. A quasifold is a space locally modelled on $\R^k$ modulo the action of a discrete, possibly infinite, group. The way strata are glued to each other also involves the action of an (infinite) discrete group. Each stratified space is endowed with a symplectic structure and a moment mapping having the property that its image gives the original polytope back. These spaces m…
In this article we consider a generalization of manifolds and orbifolds which we call quasifolds; quasifolds of dimension k are locally isomorphic to the quotient of R^k by the action of a discrete group - tipically they are not Hausdorff topological spaces. The analogue of a torus in this geometry is a quasitorus. We define Hamiltonian actions of quasitori on symplectic quasifolds and we show that any simple convex polytope, rational or not, is the image of the moment mapping for a family of effective Hamiltonian actions on symplectic quasifolds having twice the dimension of the corresponding…
In this work, we study some convex cones associated to isotropic representations of symmetric spaces. We explain the inequalities that describe them by means of cohomological conditions. In particular, we study the singular Horn cone which is the counterpart of the classical Horn cone, where the eigenvalues of Hermitian square matrices are replaced by the singular values of rectangular matrices.
Toric varieties play an important role both in symplectic and complex geometry. In symplectic geometry, the construction of a symplectic toric manifold from a smooth polytope is due to Delzant. In algebraic geometry, there is a more general construction using fans rather than polytopes. However, in case the fan is induced by a smooth polytope Audin showed both constructions to give isomorphic projective varieties. For rational but not necessarily smooth polytopes the Delzant construction was refined by Lerman and Tolman, leading to symplectic toric orbifolds or more generally, symplectic toric…
We develop a new algebraic theory of positive braids and conjugacy classes in the braid group $B_3$. We use our theory to establish a complete classification of isotopy classes of degree three symplectic curves in $\mathbb{CP}^2$ with only $A_n$-singularities for $n\geq 1$ (an $A_n$-singularity is locally modelled by the equation $z^2 = w^n$) independent of Gromov's theory of pseudoholomorphic curves. We show that if $C$ and $C'$ are degree three symplectic curves in $\mathbb{CP}^2$ with the same numbers of $A_n$-singularities for each $n\geq 1$, then $C$ is isotopic to $C'$. Furthermore, our …
We study a symplectic surgery operation we call unchaining, which effectively reduces the second Betti number and the symplectic Kodaira dimension at the same time. Using unchaining, we give novel constructions of symplectic Calabi-Yau surfaces from complex surfaces of general type, as well as from rational and ruled surfaces via the natural inverse of this operation. Combining the unchaining surgery with others, which all correspond to certain monodromy substitutions for Lefschetz pencils, we provide further applications, such as a complete resolution of a conjecture of Stipsicz on the existe…
We show that the Hamiltonian Lagrangian monodromy group, in its homological version, is trivial for any weakly exact Lagrangian submanifold of a symplectic manifold. The proof relies on a sheaf approach to Floer homology given by a relative Seidel morphism.
Let $X$ be a toric Fano manifold and denote by $Crit(f_X) \subset (\mathbb{C}^{\ast})^n$ the solution scheme of the corresponding Landau-Ginzburg system of equations. For toric Del-Pezzo surfaces and various toric Fano threefolds we define a map $L : Crit(f_X) \rightarrow Pic(X)$ such that $\mathcal{E}_L(X) : = L(Crit(f_X)) \subset Pic(X)$ is a full strongly exceptional collection of line bundles. We observe the existence of a natural monodromy map $$ M : π_1(L(X) \setminus R_X,f_X) \rightarrow Aut(Crit(f_X))$$ where $L(X)$ is the space of all Laurent polynomials whose Newton polytope is equal…
We prove that the Gromov width of coadjoint orbits of the symplectic group is at least equal to the upper bound known from the works of Zoghi and Caviedes. This establishes the actual Gromov width. Our work relies on a toric degeneration of a coadjoint orbit to a toric variety. The polytope associated to this toric variety is a string polytope arising from a string parametrization of elements of a crystal basis for a certain representation of the symplectic group.
After reviewing recent results on symplectic Lefschetz pencils and symplectic branched covers of CP^2, we describe a new construction of maps from symplectic manifolds of any dimension to CP^2 and the associated monodromy invariants. We also show that a dimensional induction process makes it possible to describe any compact symplectic manifold by a series of words in braid groups and a word in a symmetric group.
We initiate a study of positive multisections of Lefschetz fibrations via positive factorizations in framed mapping class groups of surfaces. Using our methods, one can effectively capture various interesting symplectic surfaces in symplectic 4-manifolds as multisections, such as Seiberg-Witten basic classes and exceptional classes, or branched loci of compact Stein surfaces as branched coverings of the 4-ball. Various problems regarding the topology of symplectic 4-manifolds, such as the smooth classification of symplectic Calabi-Yau 4-manifolds, can be translated to combinatorial problems in…
We give an intrinsic definition of toric symplectic stacks, and show that they are classified by simple convex polytopes equipped with some additional combinatorial data. This generalizes Delzant's classification of toric symplectic manifolds. As an application, we show that any toric symplectic stack can be deformed to an ineffective toric orbifold.
Every compact symplectic 4-manifold can be realized as a branched cover of the complex projective plane branched along a symplectic curve with cusp and node singularities; the covering map is induced by a triple of sections of a "very ample" line bundle. In this paper, we give an explicit formula describing the behavior of the braid monodromy invariants of the branch curve upon degree doubling of the linear system (from a very ample bundle $L^k$ to $L^{2k}$). As a consequence, we derive a similar degree doubling formula for the mapping class group monodromy of Donaldson's symplectic Lefschetz …
A theorem of Delzant states that any symplectic manifold $(M,\om)$ of dimension $2n$, equipped with an effective Hamiltonian action of the standard $n$-torus $\T^n = \R^{n}/2π\Z^n$, is a smooth projective toric variety completely determined (as a Hamiltonian $\T^n$-space) by the image of the moment map $ϕ:M\to\R^n$, a convex polytope $P=ϕ(M)\subset\R^n$. In this paper we show, using symplectic (action-angle) coordinates on $P\times \T^n$, how all $\om$-compatible toric complex structures on $M$ can be effectively parametrized by smooth functions on $P$. We also discuss some topics suited for a…
Schwarz showed that when a closed symplectic manifold (M,\om) is symplectically aspherical (i.e. the symplectic form and the first Chern class vanish on π_2(M)) then the spectral invariants, which are initially defined on the universal cover of the Hamiltonian group, descend to the Hamiltonian group Ham (M,\om). In this note we describe less stringent conditions on the Chern class and quantum homology of M under which the (asymptotic) spectral invariants descend to Ham (M,\om). For example, they descend if the quantum multiplication of M is undeformed and H_2(M) has rank >1, or if the minimal …
Via considerations of symplectic reduction, monodromy, mirror symmetry and Chern-Simons functionals, a conjecture is proposed on the existence of special Lagrangians in the hamiltonian deformation class of a given Lagrangian submanifold of a Calabi-Yau manifold. It involves a stability condition for graded Lagrangians, and can be proved for the simple case of $T^2$.
Let $G$ be a complex simple Lie group, and let $U \subseteq G$ be a maximal compact subgroup. Assume that $G$ admits a homogenous space $X=G/Q=U/K$ which is a compact Hermitian symmetric space. Let $\mathscr{L} \rightarrow X$ be the ample line bundle which generates the Picard group of $X$. In this paper we study the restrictions to $K$ of the family $(H^0(X, \mathscr{L}^k))_{k \in \N}$ of irreducible $G$-representations. We describe explicitly the moment polytopes for the moment maps $X \rightarrow \fk^*$ associated to positive integer multiples of the Kostant-Kirillov symplectic form on $X$,…
In this paper, we extend the Atiyah--Guillemin--Sternberg convexity theorem and Delzant's classification of symplectic toric manifolds to presymplectic manifolds. We also define and study the Morita equivalence of presymplectic toric manifolds and of their corresponding framed momentum polytopes, which may be rational or non-rational. Toric orbifolds, quasifolds and non-commutative toric varieties may be viewed as the quotient of our presymplectic toric manifolds by the kernel isotropy foliation of the presymplectic form.
We call complex quasifold of dimension k a space that is locally isomorphic to the quotient of an open subset of the space C^k by the holomorphic action of a discrete group; the analogue of a complex torus in this setting is called a complex quasitorus. We associate to each simple polytope, rational or not, a family of complex quasifolds having same dimension as the polytope, each containing a dense open orbit for the action of a suitable complex quasitorus. We show that each of these spaces M is diffeomorphic to one of the symplectic quasifolds defined in http://arXiv.org/abs/math:SG/9904179,…
The degree zero part of the quantum cohomology algebra of a smooth Fano toric symplectic manifold is determined by the superpotential function, W, of its moment polytope. In particular, this algebra is semisimple, i.e. splits as a product of fields, if and only if all the critical points of W are non-degenerate. In this paper we prove that this non-degeneracy holds for all smooth Fano toric varieties with facet-symmetric duals to moment polytopes.
Mirror symmetry for a toric variety involves Laurent polynomials whose symplectic topology is related to the algebraic geometry of the toric variety. We show that there is a monodromy action on the monomially admissible Fukaya-Seidel categories of these Laurent polynomials as the arguments of their coefficients vary that corresponds under homological mirror symmetry to tensoring by a line bundle naturally associated to the monomials whose coefficients are rotated. In the process, we introduce the monomially admissible Fukaya-Seidel category as a new interpretation of the Fukaya-Seidel category…
We apply a local differential geometric framework from Kähler toric geometry to (re)construct Calabi's extremal Kähler metrics on $\bbC\bbP^n$ blown-up at a point from data on the moment polytope.
In this article we explore compactifications of cluster varieties of finite type in complex dimension two. Cluster varieties can be viewed as the spec of a ring generated by theta functions and a compactification of such varieties can be given by a grading on that ring, which can be described by positive polytopes [17]. In the examples we exploit, the cluster variety can be interpreted as the complement of certain divisors in del Pezzo surfaces. In the symplectic viewpoint, they can be described via almost toric fibrations over $\R^2$ (after completion). Once identifying them as almost toric m…
We construct simply connected, minimal, symplectic 4-manifolds with exotic smooth structures and each with one Seiberg-Witten basic class up to sign, on the Noether line and between the Noether and half Noether lines by star surgeries introduced by Karakurt and Starkston, and by using complex singularities. We also construct certain configurations of complex singularities in the rational elliptic surfaces geometrically, without using any monodromy arguments. By using these configurations, we give symplectic embeddings of star shaped plumbings inside (some blow-ups of) elliptic surfaces.
We study moduli spaces of meromorphic connections (with arbitrary order poles) over Riemann surfaces together with the corresponding spaces of monodromy data (involving Stokes matrices). Natural symplectic structures are found and described both explicitly and from an infinite dimensional viewpoint (generalising the Atiyah-Bott approach). This enables us to give an intrinsic symplectic description of the isomonodromic deformation equations of Jimbo, Miwa and Ueno, thereby putting the existing results for the six Painleve equations and Schlesinger's equations into a uniform framework.
The topology of symplectic 4-manifolds is related to that of singular plane curves via the concept of branched covers. Thus, various classification problems concerning symplectic 4-manifolds can be reformulated as questions about singular plane curves. Moreover, using braid monodromy, these can in turn be reformulated in the language of braid group factorizations. While the results mentioned in this paper are not new, we hope that they will stimulate interest in these questions, which remain essentially wide open.
A key result in equivariant symplectic geometry is Delzant's classification of compact connected symplectic toric manifolds. The moment map induces an embedding of the quotient of the manifold by the torus action into the dual of the Lie algebra of the torus; its image is a unimodular ("Delzant") polytope; this gives a bijection between unimodular polytopes and isomorphism classes of compact connected symplectic toric manifolds. In this paper we extend Delzant's classification to non-compact symplectic toric manifolds. For a non-compact symplectic toric manifold the image of the moment map nee…
We give a generalization of toric symplectic geometry to Poisson manifolds which are symplectic away from a collection of hypersurfaces forming a normal crossing configuration. We introduce the tropical momentum map, which takes values in a generalization of affine space called a log affine manifold. Using this momentum map, we obtain a complete classification of such manifolds in terms of decorated log affine polytopes, hence extending the classification of symplectic toric manifolds achieved by Atiyah, Guillemin-Sternberg, Kostant, and Delzant.
We prove that any symplectic 4-manifold which is not a rational or ruled surface, after sufficiently many blow-ups, admits an arbitrary number of nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibrations of the same genus which cannot be obtained from one another via Luttinger surgeries. This generalizes results of Park and Yun who constructed pairs of nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibrations on knot surgered elliptic surfaces. In turn, we prove that there are monodromy factorizations of Lefschetz pencils which have the same characteristic numbers but cannot be obtained from each other via partial conjugations by Dehn twi…
We study Hamiltonian actions on $b$-symplectic manifolds with a focus on the effective case of half the dimension of the manifold. In particular, we prove a Delzant-type theorem that classifies these manifolds using polytopes that reside in a certain enlarged and decorated version of the dual of the Lie algebra of the torus.
In this paper we generalize to coisotropic actions of compact Lie groups a theorem of Guillemin on deformations of Hamiltonian structures on compact symplectic manifolds. We show how one can reconstruct from the moment polytope the symplectic form on the manifold.
The topology of broken Lefschetz fibrations is studied by means of handle decompositions. We consider a slight generalization of round handles, and describe the handle diagrams for all that appear in dimension four. We establish simplified handlebody and monodromy representations for a certain subclass of broken Lefschetz fibrations/pencils, while showing that all near-symplectic closed 4-manifolds can be supported by these a la Auroux, Donaldson, Katzarkov. Various constructions of broken Lefschetz fibrations and a generalization of the symplectic fiber sum operation to the near-symplectic se…
