This is an overview of math.AG/0310186, math.AG/0309290, math.AG/0501247, math.AG/0401002 and math.AG/0504584 written for the Proceedings of the AMS Meeting on Algebraic Geometry, Seattle, 2005.
We prove the conjecture that two projective symplectic resolutions for a symplectic variety $W$ are related by Mukai's elementary transformations over $W$ in codimension 2 in the following cases: (i). nilpotent orbit closures in a classical simple complex Lie algebra; (ii). some quotient symplectic varieties.
In this paper we analyse the birational geometry of O'Grady ten dimensional manifolds, giving a characterisation of Kaehler classes and lagrangian fibrations. Moreover, we study symplectic compactifications of intermediate jacobian fibrations of smooth cubic fourfolds.
We study smooth projective varieties with small dual variety using methods from symplectic topology. We prove the affine parts of such varieties are subcritical, and that the hyperplane class is invertible in their quantum cohomology. We derive several topological and algebraic geometric consequences from that. The main tool in our work is the Seidel representation associated to Hamiltonian fibrations.
We study the vanishing cycles on the Milnor fibre of a holomorphic map germ with special kind of non-isolated singularities which appear in symplectic geometry. We show, under assumptions given in the text, that the Lefschetz vanishing cycles freely generate the corresponding homology group of the Milnor fibre. We study two examples of applications: involutive systems in symplectic geometry (as characteristic varieties of $\hbar$-differential equations are of this type) and ajoint orbits in Lie algebras.
We overview our recent work defining and studying normal crossings varieties and subvarieties in symplectic topology. This work answers a question of Gromov on the feasibility of introducing singular (sub)varieties into symplectic topology in the case of normal crossings singularities. It also provides a necessary and sufficient condition for smoothing normal crossings symplectic varieties. In addition, we explain some connections with other areas of mathematics and discuss a few directions for further research.
This contains a list of (mostly very minor) corrections to the book Introduction to Symplectic Topology, Clarendon Press, Oxford, (1995), together with rewritten versions of two lemmas and some additional comments.
There is two group actions on the Fano scheme of lines such that the quotient becomes an irreducible symplectic manifold. We showed that both quotients are birational to the generalized Kummer variety or the 2-points Hilbert scheme of a K3 surface.
We introduce topological notions of normal crossings symplectic divisor and variety and establish that they are equivalent, in a suitable sense, to the desired geometric notions. Our proposed concept of equivalence of associated topological and geometric notions fits ideally with important constructions in symplectic topology. This partially answers Gromov's question on the feasibility of defining singular symplectic (sub)varieties and lays foundation for rich developments in the future. In subsequent papers, we establish a smoothability criterion for symplectic normal crossings varieties, in …
We study the cohomology rings of snc log symplectic pairs $(X,Y)$ which have log symplectic forms of pure weight. We show that under a certain natural condition, the cohomology ring of $X \setminus Y$ exhibits the curious hard Lefschetz property. Analogous results are shown to hold for limit mixed Hodge structures associated to good degenerations of projective irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds. We provide several examples of log symplectic pairs of pure weight including a class of cluster-type varieties, and examples coming from the work of Feigin and Odesski. We show that the compo…
The goal of these notes is to show that the classification problem of algebraically unbiased system of projectors has an interpretation in symplectic geometry. This leads us to a description of the moduli space of algebraically unbiased bases as critical points of a potential functions, which is a Laurent polynomial in suitable coordinates. The Newton polytope of the Laurent polynomial is the classical Birkhoff polytope, the set of double stochastic matrices. Mirror symmetry interprets the polynomial as a Landau-Ginzburg potential for corresponding Fano variety and relates the symplectic geome…
The purpose of the notes is to reiterate and expand the viewpoint, outlined in the paper math.AG/0110142 of T. Coates and the author, which recasts the concept of Frobenius manifold in terms of linear symplectic geometry and exposes the role of the twisted loop group L^{(2)}GL_N of hidden symmetries. New applications include a several line proof of the genus 0 Virasoro constraints and the quantum Hirzebruch-Riemann-Roch theorem in the theory of cobordism-valued Gromov-Witten invariants.
In recent work, we introduced topological notions of simple normal crossings symplectic divisor and variety, showed that they are equivalent, in a suitable sense, to the corresponding geometric notions, and established a topological smoothability criterion for them. The present paper extends these notions to arbitrary normal crossings singularities, from both local and global perspectives, and shows that they are also equivalent to the corresponding geometric notions. In subsequent papers, we extend our smoothability criterion to arbitrary normal crossings symplectic varieties and construct a …
This is a collection of results on the topology of toric symplectic manifolds. Using an idea of Borisov, we show that a closed symplectic manifold supports at most a finite number of toric structures. Further, the product of two projective spaces of complex dimension at least two (and with a standard product symplectic form) has a unique toric structure. We then discuss various constructions, using wedging to build a monotone toric symplectic manifold whose center is not the unique point displaceable by probes, and bundles and blow ups to form manifolds with more than one toric structure. The …
Ramanujam's surface M is a contractible affine algebraic surface which is not homeomorphic to the affine plane. For any m>1 the product M^m is diffeomorphic to Euclidean space R^{4m}. We show that, for every m>0, M^m cannot be symplectically embedded into a subcritical Stein manifold. This gives the first examples of exotic symplectic structures on Euclidean space which are convex at infinity. It follows that any exhausting plurisubharmonic Morse function on M^m has at least three critical points, answering a question of Eliashberg. The heart of the argument involves showing a particular Lagra…
In this paper, we gave some explicit relations between absolute and relative Gromov-Witten invariants. We proved that a symplectic manifold is symplectic rationally connected if it contains a positive divisor symplectomorphic to $P^n$.
In this paper we survey several intersection and non-intersection phenomena appearing in the realm of symplectic topology. We discuss their implications and finally outline some new relations of the subject to algebraic geometry.
We construct an explicit topological model (similar to the topological Springer fibers appearing in work of Khovanov and Russell) for every two-row Springer fiber associated with the even orthogonal group and prove that the respective topological model is homeomorphic to its corresponding Springer fiber. This confirms a conjecture by Ehrig and Stroppel concerning the topology of the equal-row Springer fiber for the even orthogonal group. Moreover, we show that every two-row Springer fiber for the symplectic group is homeomorphic (even isomorphic as an algebraic variety) to a connected componen…
We prove that all complex analytic subvarieties of a generic compact hyperkaehler manifold are even-dimensional. Moreover, these subvarieties are holomorphically symplectic.
Our previous papers introduce topological notions of normal crossings symplectic divisor and variety, show that they are equivalent, in a suitable sense, to the corresponding geometric notions, and establish a topological smoothability criterion for normal crossings symplectic varieties. The present paper constructs a blowup, a complex line bundle, and a logarithmic tangent bundle naturally associated with a normal crossings symplectic divisor and determines the Chern class of the last bundle. These structures hav applications in constructions and analysis of various moduli spaces. As a coroll…
We review recent results and ongoing investigations of the symplectic and Poisson geometry of derived moduli spaces, and describe applications to deformation quantization of such spaces.
Let X be a minimal surface of general type with positive geometric genus ($b_+ > 1$) and let $K^2$ be the square of its canonical class. Building on work of Khodorovskiy and Rana, we prove that if X develops a Wahl singularity of length $\ell$ in a Q-Gorenstein degeneration, then $\ell \leq 4K^2 + 7$. This improves on the current best-known upper bound due to Lee ($\ell \leq 400(K^2)^4$). Our bound follows from a stronger theorem constraining symplectic embeddings of certain rational homology balls in surfaces of general type. In particular, we show that if the rational homology ball $B_{p,1}$…
We will survey some aspects of the smooth topology, algebraic geometry, symplectic geometry and contact geometry of anti-canonical pairs in complex dimension two.
We study the mirror operation of the Atiyah flop in symplectic geometry. We formulate the operation for a symplectic manifold with a Lagrangian fibration. Furthermore we construct geometric stability conditions on the derived Fukaya category of the deformed conifold and study the action of the mirror Atiyah flop on these stability conditions.
We study symplectic geometry of rationally connected $3$-folds. The first result shows that rationally connectedness is a symplectic deformation invariant in dimension $3$. If a rationally connected $3$-fold $X$ is Fano or $b_2(X)=2$, we prove that it is symplectic rationally connected, i.e. there is a non-zero Gromov-Witten invariant with two insertions being the class of a point. Finally we prove that many rationally connected $3$-folds are birational to a symplectic rationally connected variety.
We build a bridge between Floer theory on open symplectic manifolds and the enumerative geometry of holomorphic disks inside their Fano compactifications, by detecting elements in symplectic cohomology which are mirror to Landau-Ginzburg potentials. We also treat the higher Maslov index versions of the potentials. We discover a relation between higher disk potentials and symplectic cohomology rings of smooth anticanonical divisor complements (themselves conjecturally related to closed-string Gromov-Witten invariants), and explore several other applications to the geometry of Liouville domains.
We prove that the information geometry's Frobenius manifold is a symplectic manifold having Poisson structures. By proving this statement, a bridge is created between the theories developed by Vinberg, Souriau and Koszul and the Frobenius manifold approach. Until now these approaches seemed disconnected.
We study some symplectic geometric aspects of rationally connected 4-folds. As a corollary, we prove that any smooth projective 4-fold symplectic deformation equivalent to a Fano 4-fold of pseudo-index at least 2 or a rationally connected 4-fold whose second Betti number is 2 is rationally connected.
Our paper develops a theory of Poisson slices and a uniform approach to their partial compactifications. The theory in question is loosely comparable to that of symplectic cross-sections in real symplectic geometry.
We first present the construction of the moduli space of real pseudo-holomorphic curves in a given real symplectic manifold. Then, following the approach of Gromov and Witten, we construct invariants under deformation of real rational symplectic 4-manifolds. These invariants provide lower bounds for the number of real rational $J$-holomorphic curves in a given homology class passing through a given real configuration of points.
In this paper we obtain the following results: (1) Any compact Stein surface with boundary embeds naturally into a symplectic Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere. (2) There exists a minimal elliptic fibration over the 2-disk, which is not Stein. (3) The circle bundle over a genus n>1 surface with euler number e=-1 admits at least n+1 mutually non-homeomorphic simply-connected Stein fillings. (4) Any surface bundle over the circle, whose fiber is a closed surface of genus n>0 can be embedded into a closed symplectic 4-manifold, splitting the symplectic 4-manifold into two pieces both of which…
These notes accompany a lecture about the topology of symplectic (and other) quotients. The aim is two-fold: first to advertise the ease of computation in the symplectic category; and second to give an account of some new computations for weighted projective spaces. We start with a brief exposition of how orbifolds arise in the symplectic category, and discuss the techniques used to understand their topology. We then show how these results can be used to compute the Chen-Ruan orbifold cohomology ring of abelian symplectic reductions. We conclude by comparing the several rings associated to a w…
We examine the structure of the cotangent bundle $T^{*}X$ of an algebraic variety $X$ acted on by a reductive group $G$ from the viewpoint of equivariant symplectic geometry. In particular, we construct an equivariant symplectic covering of $T^{*}X$ by the cotangent bundle of a certain variety of horospheres in $X$, and integrate the invariant collective motion on $T^{*}X$. These results are based on a "local structure theorem" describing the action of a certain parabolic in $G$ on an open subset of $X$, which is interesting by itself.
Let G be a finite group acting on a symplectic complex vector space V. Assume that the quotient V/G has a holomorphic symplectic resolution. We prove that G is generated by "symplectic reflectionsd"', i.e. symplectomorphisms with fixed space of codimension 2 in V. Symplectic resolutions are always semismall. A crepant resolution of V/G is always symplectic. We give a symplectic version of Nakamura conjectures.
This is a survey on symplectic birational geometry. In arbitrary dimension, this subject is centered around the notion of uniruledness. In low dimensions, we will also discuss Kodaira dimension and minimality.
Let Bun_G be the moduli space of G-bundles on a smooth complex projective curve. Motivated by a study of boundary conditions in mirror symmetry, D. Gaiotto associated to any symplectic representation of G a Lagrangian subvariety of the cotangent bundle of Bun_G. We give a simple interpretation of (a generalization of) Gaiotto's construction in terms of derived symplectic geometry. This allows to consider a more general setting where symplectic G-representations are replaced by arbitrary symplectic manifolds equipped with a Hamiltonian G-action and with an action of the multiplicative group tha…
By investigating the symplectic geometry and geometric quantization on a class of supermanifolds, we exhibit BRST structures for a certain kind of algebras. We discuss the undeformed and q-deformed cases in the classical as well as in the quantum cases.
Recently V. Ginzburg proved that Calogero phase space is a coadjoint orbit for some infinite dimensional Lie algebra coming from noncommutative symplectic geometry. In this note we generalize this argument to specific quotient varieties of representations of (deformed) preprojective algebras. This result was also obtained independently by V. Ginzburg.
We give a systematic presentation of the stability theory in the non-algebraic Kaehlerian geometry. We introduce the concept of "energy complete Hamiltonian action". To an energy complete Hamiltonian action of a reductive group G on a complex manifold one can associate a G-equivariant maximal weight function and prove a Hilbert criterion for semistability. In other words, for such actions, the symplectic semistability and analytic semistability conditions are equivalent.