In this paper we try to look at the compactification of Teichmuller spaces from a tropical viewpoint. We describe a general construction for the compactification of algebraic varieties, using their amoebas, and we describe the boundary via tropical varieties. When we apply this construction to the Teichmuller spaces we see that they can be mapped in a real algebraic hypersurface in such a way that the cone over the boundary is a subpolyhedron of a tropical hypersurface. We want to show how some properties of the boundary becomes straightforward if looked at from this point of view. For example there is a PL structure that appears naturally on the boundary, and it is shown to be equivalent to the one defined by Thurston. Also we may see easily that every polynomial relation among trace functions on Teichmuller space may be turned automatically in a tropical relation among intersection forms over the boundary.
This survey consists of two parts. Part 1 is devoted to amoebas. These are images of algebraic subvarieties in the complex torus under the logarithmic moment map. The amoebas have essentially piecewise-linear shape if viewed at large. Furthermore, they degenerate to certain piecewise-linear objects called tropical varieties whose behavior is governed by algebraic geometry over the so-called tropical semifield. Geometric aspects of tropical algebraic geometry are the content of Part 2. We pay special attention to tropical curves. Both parts also include relevant applications of the theories. Pa…
In this article we use techniques from tropical and logarithmic geometry to construct a non-Archimedean analogue of Teichmüller space $\overline{\mathcal{T}}_g$ whose points are pairs consisting of a stable projective curve over a non-Archimedean field and a Teichmüller marking of the topological fundamental group of its Berkovich analytification. This construction is closely related to and inspired by the classical construction of a non-Archimedean Schottky space for Mumford curves by Gerritzen and Herrlich. We argue that the skeleton of non-Archimedean Teichmüller space is precisely the trop…
We study the non-archimedean counterpart to the complex amoeba of an algebraic variety, and show that it coincides with a polyhedral set defined by Bieri and Groves using valuations. For hypersurfaces this set is also the tropical variety of the defining polynomial. Using non-archimedean analysis and a recent result of Conrad we prove that the amoeba of an irreducible variety is connected. We introduce the notion of an adelic amoeba for varieties over global fields, and establish a form of the local-global principle for them. This principle is used to explain the calculation of the nonexpansiv…
We study generic intersection (or web) of vortices with instantons inside, which is a 1/4 BPS state in the Higgs phase of five-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric U(Nc) gauge theory on R_t \times (C^\ast)^2 \simeq R^{2,1} \times T^2 with Nf=Nc Higgs scalars in the fundamental representation. In the case of the Abelian-Higgs model (Nf=Nc=1), the intersecting vortex sheets can be beautifully understood in a mathematical framework of amoeba and tropical geometry, and we propose a dictionary relating solitons and gauge theory to amoeba and tropical geometry. A projective shape of vortex sheets is descr…
\textit{Harmonic amoebas} are generalisations of amoebas of algebraic curves immersed in complex tori. Introduced in \cite{Kri}, the consideration of such objects suggests to enlarge the scope of tropical geometry. In the present paper, we introduce the notion of harmonic morphisms from tropical curves to affine spaces and show how these morphisms can be systematically described as limits of families of harmonic amoeba maps on Riemann surfaces. It extends previous results about approximation of tropical curves in affine spaces and provides a different point of view on Mikhalkin's approximation…
To every rational complex curve $C \subset (\mathbf{C}^\times)^n$ we associate a rational tropical curve $Γ\subset \mathbf{R}^n$ so that the amoeba $\mathcal{A}(C) \subset \mathbf{R}^n$ of $C$ is within a bounded distance from $Γ$. In accordance with the terminology introduced by Passare and Rullgård, we call $Γ$ the spine of $\mathcal{A}(C)$. We use spines to describe tropical limits of sequences of rational complex curves.
Given any complex Laurent polynomial $f$, $\mathrm{Amoeba}(f)$ is the image of its complex zero set under the coordinate-wise log absolute value map. We give an efficiently constructible polyhedral approximation, $\mathrm{ArchtTrop}(f)$, of $\mathrm{Amoeba}(f)$, and derive explicit upper and lower bounds, solely as a function of the number of monomial terms of $f$, for the Hausdorff distance between these two sets. We also show that deciding whether a given point lies in $\mathrm{ArchTrop}(f)$ is doable in polynomial-time, for any fixed dimension, unlike the corresponding problem for $\mathrm{…
This paper studies the curvatures of amoebas and real amoebas (i.e. essentially logarithmic curvatures of the complex and real parts of a real algebraic hypersurface) and of tropical and real tropical hypersurfaces. If V is a tropical hypersurface defined over the field of real Puiseux series, it has a real part RV which is a polyhedral complex. We define the total curvature of V (resp. RV) by using the total curvature of Amoebas and passing to the limit. We also define the "polyhedral total curvature" of the real part RV of a generic tropical hypersurface. The main results we prove about thes…
In this paper, we present a unified study of the moduli space of tropical curves and Outer space which we link via period maps to the moduli space of tropical abelian varieties and the space of positive definite quadratic forms. Our work is a first step towards exhibiting Outer space and the space of positive definite quadratic forms as analogues of Teichmüller space and Siegel space, respectively, in tropical geometry. All these spaces and the maps among them are described within the category of ideal stacky fans, which we describe in detail.
We consider Gromov's homological higher convexity for complements of tropical varieties, establishing it for complements of tropical hypersurfaces and curves, and for nonarchimedean amoebas of varieties that are complete intersections over the field of complex Puiseaux series. Based on these results, we conjecture that the complement of a tropical variety has this higher convexity, and we prove a weak form of our conjecture for the nonarchimedean amoeba of a variety over the complex Puiseaux field. One of our main tools is Jonsson's limit theorem for tropical varieties.
We prove a continuity result for the fibers of the Berkovich analytification of a complex algebraic variety with respect to the the maximum of the Archimedean norm and the trivial norm. As a consequence, we obtain generalizations of a result of Mikhalkin and Rullgard about degenerations of amoebae onto tropical varieties.
Exploiting a connection between amoebas and tropical curves, we devise a method for computing tropical curves using numerical algebraic geometry and give an implementation. As an application, we use this technique to compute Newton polygons of $A$-polynomials of knots.
Let $V$ be a complex algebraic hypersurface defined by a polynomial $f$ with Newton polytope $Δ$. It is well known that the spine of its amoeba has a structure of a tropical hypersurface. We prove in this paper that there exists a complex tropical hypersurface $V_{\infty, f}$ such that its coamoeba is homeomorphic to the closure in the real torus of the coamoeba of $V$. Moreover, the coamoeba of $V_{\infty, f}$ contains an arrangement of $(n-1)$-torus depending only on the geometry of $Δ$ and the coefficients of $f$. In addition, we can consider this arrangement, as a weighted codual hyperplan…
The amoeba of an affine algebraic variety V in (C^*)^r is the image of V under the map (z_1, ..., z_r) -> (log|z_1|, ..., log|z_r|). We give a characterisation of the amoeba based on the triangle inequality, which we call testing for lopsidedness. We show that if a point is outside the amoeba of V, there is an element of the defining ideal which witnesses this fact by being lopsided. This condition is necessary and sufficient for amoebas of arbitrary codimension, as well as for compactifications of amoebas inside any toric variety. Our approach naturally leads to methods for approximating hype…
We derive efficient algorithms for coarse approximation of algebraic hypersurfaces, useful for estimating the distance between an input polynomial zero set and a given query point. Our methods work best on sparse polynomials of high degree (in any number of variables) but are nevertheless completely general. The underlying ideas, which we take the time to describe in an elementary way, come from tropical geometry. We thus reduce a hard algebraic problem to high-precision linear optimization, proving new upper and lower complexity estimates along the way.
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group. We develop a Gröbner theory for multiplicity-free $G$-algebras, as well as a tropical geometry for subschemes in a spherical homogeneous space $G/H$. We define the notion of a spherical tropical variety and prove a fundamental theorem of tropical geometry in this context. We also propose a definition for a spherical amoeba in $G/H$. Our work partly builds on the previous work of Vogiannou on spherical tropicalization and in some ways is complementary.
We construct the moduli space for equivalence classes of n-pointed tropical curves of genus g, together with its compactification given by weighted tropical curves, and establish some of its basic topological properties. We compare it to the moduli spaces of smooth and stable algebraic curves, from the combinatorial, the topological, and the Teichmüller point of view. The paper is written in an expository style, and it generalizes some results contained in sections 4-6 of arXiv:1001.2815v3.
In this paper we study a $k$-dimensional analytic subvariety of the complex algebraic torus. We show that if its logarithmic limit set is a finite rational $(k-1)$-dimensional spherical polyhedron, then each irreducible component of the variety is algebraic. This gives a converse of a theorem of Bieri and Groves and generalizes a result proven in \cite{MN2-11}. More precisely, if the dimension of the ambient space is at least twice of the dimension of the generic analytic subvariety, then these properties are equivalent to the volume of the amoeba of the subvariety being finite.
In this paper we construct a compactification for the parameter space of convex projective structures on a fixed n-manifold M. This parameter space is a closed semi-algebraic subset of the variety of characters of representations of the fundamental group of M in SL_{n+1}(R). The boundary is the inverse limit of an inverse system of logarithmic limit sets of this semi-algebraic set, in a sense it is the tropicalization of the parameter space. The interpretation of the boundary points can also be given using tropical geometry. This construction is a generalization of the construction of compacti…
A positive space is a space with a positive atlas, i.e. a collection of rational coordinate systems with subtraction free transition functions. The set of positive real points of a positive space is well defined. We define a tropical compactification of the latter. We show that it generalizes the Thurston compactification of a Teichmuller space. The tropical boundary of a positive space is a sphere with a piecewise linear structure. Cluster X-varieties are positive spaces of rather special type. We define special completions of cluster X-varieties. They have a stratification whose strata are (…
We give a Thurston-like definition for laminations on higher Teichmuller spaces associated to a surface $S$ and a semi-simple group $G$ for $G-SL_m$ and $PGL_m$. The case $G=SL_2$ or $PGL_2$ corresponds to the classical theory of laminations. Our construction involves positive configurations of points in the affine building. We show that these laminations are parameterized by the tropical points of the spaces $\X_{G,S}$ and $\A_{G,S}$ of Fock and Goncharov. Finally, we explain how these laminations give a compactification of higher Teichmuller spaces.
Let G be a split semisimple algebraic group with trivial center. Let S be a compact oriented surface, with or without boundary. We define {\it positive} representations of the fundamental group of S to G(R), construct explicitly all positive representations, and prove that they are faithful, discrete, and positive hyperbolic; the moduli space of positive representations is a topologically trivial open domain in the space of all representations. When S have holes, we defined two moduli spaces closely related to the moduli spaces of G-local systems on S. We show that they carry a lot of interest…
