Operators on the ring of algebraically constructible functions are used to compute local obstructions for a four-dimensional semialgebraic set to be homeomorphic to a real algebraic set. The link operator and arithmetic operators yield $2^{43}-43$ independent characteristic numbers mod 2, which generalize the Akbulut-King numbers in dimension three.
We discuss the principle tools and results and state a few open problems concerning the classification and topology of plane sextics and trigonal curves in ruled surfaces.
We show that mapping class groups associated to all types of real algebraic curves are virtual duality groups. We also deduce some results about the orbifold homotopy groups of the moduli spaces of real algebraic curves. We achieve these results by defining a new complex associated to a not necessarily orientable surface with boundary called the $\mathcal{A}\mathcal{B}\mathcal{C}$-complex. This complex encodes the intersection patterns of isotopy classes of essential simple arcs, boundary components, and essential simple closed curves. We show that this complex is homotopy equivalent to an inf…
We consider a semi-algebraic function defined on a closed semi-algebraic set X. We give formulas relating the topology of X to the indices of the critical points of the function and to the topological behavior of the function at infinity. We give applications when X is R^n and when the function is linear.
Algebraically constructible functions connect real algebra with the topology of algebraic sets. In this survey we present some history, definitions, properties, and algebraic characterizations of algebraically constructible functions, and a description of local obstructions for a topological space to be homeomorphic to a real algebraic set.
We discuss selected topics on the topology of moduli spaces of curves and maps, emphasizing their relation with Gromov--Witten theory and integrable systems.
We study the topology of some simple infinite dimensional singularities arising from spaces of \emph{algebraic formal loops}. We prove that in some simple cases the natural analogue of nearby cycles cohomology for a function on the loop space vanishes, and show further that a suitably renormalized version of the above cohomology produces a simple (non-zero) result.
This note surveys basic topological properties of nonarchimedean analytic spaces, in the sense of Berkovich, including the recent tameness results of Hrushovski and Loeser. We also discuss interactions between the topology of nonarchimedean analytic spaces and classical algebraic geometry.
We address the question of finding algebraic properties that are respectively equivalent, for a morphism between algebraic varieties over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, to be an homeomorphism for the Zariski topology and for a strong topology that we introduce. Our answers involve a study of seminormalization and saturation for morphisms between algebraic varieties, together with an interpretation in terms of continuous rational functions on the closed points of an algebraic variety. The continuity refers to the strong topology which is the usual Euclidean topology in th…
For an algebraic variety $X$ we study the behavior of algebraic morphisms from an algebraic variety to the group $\bir(X)$ of birational maps of $X$ and obtain, as application, some insight about the relationship between the so-called Zariski topology of $\bir(X)$ and the algebraic structure of this group, where $X$ is a rational variety.
Using only basic topological properties of real algebraic sets and regular morphisms we show that any injective regular self-mapping of a real algebraic set is surjective. Then we show that injective morphisms between germs of real algebraic sets define a partial order on the equivalence classes of these germs divided by continuous semi-algebraic homeomorphisms. We use this observation to deduce that any injective regular self-mapping of a real algebraic set is a homeomorphism. We show also a similar local property. All our results can be extended to arc-symmetric semi-algebraic sets and injec…
We observe that the oriented homeomorphism type of a simply- connected smooth projective surface is determined by its algebraic structure modulo an odd prime of good reduction.
Let Y be a normal crossing divisor in the smooth projective algebraic variety X (defined over ${\mathbb C}$) and let U be a tubular neighbourhood of Y in X. We construct homological cycles generating $H_*(A,B)$, where (A,B) is one of the following pairs $(Y,\emptyset)$, (X,Y), (X,X-Y), $(X-Y,\emptyset)$ and $(\partial U,\emptyset)$. The construction is compatible with the weights in $H_*(A,B,{\mathbb Q})$ of Deligne's mixed Hodge structure.
A brief survey of real algebraic structures on topological spaces is given. This article is written for the Gokova Gemetry/Topology Conference proceedings.
We give a survey of algorithms for computing topological invariants of semi-algebraic sets with special emphasis on the more recent developments in designing algorithms for computing the Betti numbers of semi-algebraic sets. Aside from describing these results, we discuss briefly the background as well as the importance of these problems, and also describe the main tools from algorithmic semi-algebraic geometry, as well as algebraic topology, which make these advances possible. We end with a list of open problems.
We compute the integral homology (including torsion), the topological K-theory, and the Hodge structure on cohomology of Calabi-Yau threefold hypersurfaces and complete intersections in Gorenstein toric Fano varieties. The methods are purely topological.
We study the Euler characteristic of the real Milnor fibres of a real analytic map, using a relation between complex monodromy and complex conjugation. We deduce the result of Coste and Kurdyka that the Euler characteristic of the link of an irreducible algebraic subset of a real algebraic set is generically constant modulo 4. We generalize this result to iterated links of ordered families of algebraic subsets.
We give a tool for understanding simplicial desuspension in A1-algebraic topology: we show that $X \to Ω(S^1 \wedge X)\to Ω(S^1 \wedge X \wedge X)$ is a fiber sequence up to homotopy in 2-localized A1-algebraic topology for $X = (S^1)^m \wedge G_m^{\wedge q}$ with $m>1$. It follows that there is an EHP sequence spectral sequence $$Z_{(2)} \otimes π_{n+1+i}^{A1} (S^{2n+2m+1} \wedge (G_m)^{\wedge 2q}) \Rightarrow Z_{(2)} \otimes π_{i}^{A1, s} (S^{m} \wedge (G_m)^{\wedge q}).$$
The study of the topology of real algebraic varieties dates back to the work of Harnack, Klein and Hilbert in the 19th century; in particular, the isotopy type classification of real algebraic curves in real toric surfaces is a classical subject that has undergone considerable evolution. On the other hand, not much is known for more general ambient surfaces. We take a step forward in the study of topological types classification of real algebraic curves on non-toric surfaces focusing on real del Pezzo surfaces of degree $1$ and $2$ with multi-components real part. We use degeneration methods a…
I will discuss recent progress by many people in the program of extending natural topological invariants from manifolds to singular spaces. Intersection homology theory and mixed Hodge theory are model examples of such invariants. The past 20 years have seen a series of new invariants, partly inspired by string theory, such as motivic integration and the elliptic genus of a singular variety. These theories are not defined in a topological way, but there are intriguing hints of their topological significance.
Let $P \in \mathbb{Z} [X, Y]$ be a given square-free polynomial of total degree $d$ with integer coefficients of bitsize less than $τ$, and let $V_{\mathbb{R}} (P) := \{ (x,y) \in \mathbb{R}^2, P (x,y) = 0 \}$ be the real planar algebraic curve implicitly defined as the vanishing set of $P$. We give a deterministic and certified algorithm to compute the topology of $V_{\mathbb{R}} (P)$ in terms of a straight-line planar graph $\mathcal{G}$ that is isotopic to $V_{\mathbb{R}} (P)$. Our analysis yields the upper bound $\tilde O (d^5 τ+ d^6)$ on the bit complexity of our algorithm, which matches …
In the theory of algebraic group actions on affine varieties, the concept of a Kempf-Ness set is used to replace the categorical quotient by the quotient with respect to a maximal compact subgroup. By making use of the recent achievements of "toric topology" we show that an appropriate notion of a Kempf-Ness set exists for a class of algebraic torus actions on quasiaffine varieties (coordinate subspace arrangement complements) arising in the Batyrev-Cox "geometric invariant theory" approach to toric varieties. We proceed by studying the cohomology of these "toric" Kempf-Ness sets. In the case …
We give a motivated introduction to the theory of perverse sheaves, culminating in the Decomposition Theorem of Beilinson, Bernstein, Deligne and Gabber. A goal of this survey is to show how the theory develops naturally from classical constructions used in the study of topological properties of algebraic varieties. While most proofs are omitted, we discuss several approaches to the Decomposition Theorem, indicate some important applications and examples.
On a smooth algebraic variety over $\mathbb{C}$, we build the tempered subanalytic and Stein tempered subanalytic sites. We construct the sheaf of holomorphic functions tempered at infinity over these sites and study their relations with the sheaf of regular functions, proving in particular that these sheaves are isomorphic on Zariski open subsets. We show that these data allow to define the functors of tempered and Stein tempered analytifications. We study the relations between these two functors and the usual analytification functor. We also obtain algebraization results in the non-proper ca…
We explain connections among several, a priori unrelated, areas of mathematics: combinatorics, algebraic statistics, topology and enumerative algebraic geometry. Our focus is on discrete invariants, strongly related to the theory of Lorentzian polynomials. The main concept joining the mentioned fields is a linear space of matrices.
We investigate for which linear-algebraic groups (over the complex numbers or any local field) there exists subgroups which are dense in the Zariski topology, but discrete in the Hausdorff topology. For instance, such subgroups exist for every non-solvable complex group.
In the 1990's, Itenberg and Haas studied the relations between combinatorial data in Viro's patchworking and the topology of the resulting non-singular real algebraic curves in the projective plane. Using recent results from Renaudineau and Shaw on real algebraic curves near the non-singular tropical limit, we continue the study of Itenberg and Haas inside any non-singular projective toric surface. We give new Haas' like criteria for patchworking non-singular real algebraic curves with prescribed number of connected components, in terms of twisted edges on a non-singular tropical curve. We the…
We introduce a class of combinatorial hypersurfaces in the complex projective space. They are submanifolds of codimension~2 in $\C P^n$ and are topologically "glued" out of algebraic hypersurfaces in $(\C^*)^n$. Our construction can be viewed as a version of the Viro gluing theorem, relating topology of algebraic hypersurfaces to the combinatorics of subdivisions of convex lattice polytopes. If a subdivision is convex, then according to the Viro theorem a combinatorial hypersurface is isotopic to an algebraic one. We study combinatorial hypersurfaces resulting from non-convex subdivisions of c…
According to Markov, a subset of an abelian group G of the form {x in G: nx=a}, for some integer n and some element a of G, is an elementary algebraic set; finite unions of elementary algebraic sets are called algebraic sets. We prove that a subset of an abelian group G is algebraic if and only if it is closed in every precompact (=totally bounded) Hausdorff group topology on G. The family of all algebraic subsets of an abelian group G forms the family of closed subsets of a unique Noetherian T_1 topology on G called the Zariski, or verbal, topology of G. We investigate the properties of this …
Let k be a field. Denote by Spc(k)_* the unstable, pointed motivic homotopy category and by Omega_Gm: Spc(k)_* \to Spc(k)_* the Gm-loops functor. For a k-group G, denote by Gr_G the affine Grassmannian of G. If G is isotropic reductive, we provide a canonical motivic equivalence Omega_Gm G = Gr_G. If k is perfect, we use this to compute the motive M(Omega_Gm G) in DM(k, Z).
Let X be a smooth complex projective manifold of dimension n equipped with an ample line bundle L and a rank k holomorphic vector bundle E. We assume that 0< k <=n, that X, E and L are defined over the reals and denote by RX the real locus of X. Then, we estimate from above and below the expected Betti numbers of the vanishing loci in RX of holomorphic real sections of E tensored with L^d, where d is a large enough integer. Moreover, given any closed connected codimension k submanifold S of R^n with trivial normal bundle, we prove that a real section of E tensored with L^d has a positive proba…
Let X be a smooth complex algebraic variety with the Zariski topology, and let Y be the underlying complex manifold with the complex topology. Grothendieck's algebraic de Rham theorem asserts that the singular cohomology of Y with complex coefficients can be computed from the complex of sheaves of algebraic differential forms on X. This article gives an elementary proof of Grothendieck's algebraic de Rham theorem, elementary in the sense that we use only tools from standard textbooks as well as Serre's FAC and GAGA papers.
In this article we give a homological characterization of the topology of Stein spaces over any valued base field. In particular, when working over the field of complex numbers, we obtain a characterization of the usual Euclidean (transcendental) topology of complex analytic spaces. For non-Archimedean base fields the topology we characterize coincides with the topology of the Berkovich analytic space associated to a non-Archimedean Stein algebra. Because the characterization we used is borrowed from a definition in derived geometry, this work should be read as a contribution towards the found…
A number of geometric properties of $Ω$-groups from a given variety of $Ω$-groups can be characterized using the notions of domain and equational domain. An $Ω$-group $H$ of a variety $Θ$ is an equational domain in $Θ$ if the union of algebraic varieties over $H$ is an algebraic variety. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for an $Ω$-group $H$ in $Θ$ to be an equational domain in this variety.
Here we survey several results and conjectures on the cohomology of the total space of the Hitchin system: the moduli space of semi-stable rank n and degree d Higgs bundles on a complex algebraic curve C. The picture emerging is a dynamic mixture of ideas originating in theoretical physics such as gauge theory and mirror symmetry, Weil conjectures in arithmetic algebraic geometry, representation theory of finite groups of Lie type and Langlands duality in number theory.
Algebraic geometry has many connections with physics: string theory, enumerative geometry, and mirror symmetry, among others. In particular, within the topological study of algebraic varieties physicists focus on aspects involving symmetry and non-commutativity. In this paper, we study a family of classical algebraic curves, the hypocycloids, which have links to physics via the bifurcation theory. The topology of some of these curves plays an important role in string theory and also appears in Zariski's foundational. We compute the fundamental groups of some of these curves and show that they …
Earlier it was described to which extent the Alexander polynomial in several variables of an algebraic link in the Poincaré sphere determines the topology of the link. It was shown that, except some explicitly described cases, the Alexander polynomial of an algebraic link determines the combinatorial type of the minimal resolution of the curve and therefore the topology of the corresponding link. The Alexander polynomial of an algebraic link in the Poincaré sphere coincides with the Poincaré series of the corresponding set of curve valuations. The latter one can be defined as an integral over …
In this paper we prove the following results: $1)$ We show that any arithmetic quotient of a homogeneous space admits a natural real semi-algebraic structure for which its Hecke correspondences are semi-algebraic. A particularly important example is given by Hodge varieties, which parametrize pure polarized integral Hodge structures. $2)$ We prove that the period map associated to any pure polarized variation of integral Hodge structures $\mathbb{V}$ on a smooth complex quasi-projective variety $S$ is definable with respect to an o-minimal structure on the relevant Hodge variety induced by the…
Recent developments of affine algebraic geometry, especially the theory of open algebraic surfaces, provide means to systematically explore geometric and topological properties of polynomials in two variables. Nevertheless, there is one unsurmountable problem remained even in the case of two variables, which has been unsolved since 1939, that is the Jacobian Conjecture. These are notes for author's lectures on the geometry and topology of polynomials and the Jacobian Conjecture delivered at the l'Université de Bordeaux I and at Osaka University in 2003.
We show that the way in which Betti cohomology varies in a proper family of complex algebraic varieties is controlled by certain "higher discriminants" in the base. These discriminants are defined in terms of transversality conditions, which in the case of a morphism between smooth varieties can be checked by a tangent space calculation. They control the variation of cohomology in the following two senses: (1) the support of any summand of the pushforward of the IC sheaf along a projective map is a component of a higher discriminant, and (2) any component of the characteristic cycle of the pro…
This is the second of a series of papers studying real algebraic threefolds using the minimal model program. The main result is the following. Let $X$ be a smooth projective real algebraic 3-fold. Assume that the set of real points is an orientable 3-manifold (this assumption can be weakened considerably). Then there is a fairly simple description on how the topology of real points changes under the minimal model program. The first application is to study the topology of real projective varieties which are birational to projective 3-space (Nash conjecture). The second application is a factoriz…
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.
The MEK/ERK signalling pathway is involved in cell division, cell specialisation, survival and cell death. Here we study a polynomial dynamical system describing the dynamics of MEK/ERK proposed by Yeung et al. with their experimental setup, data and known biological information. The experimental dataset is a time-course of ERK measurements in different phosphorylation states following activation of either wild-type MEK or MEK mutations associated with cancer or developmental defects. We demonstrate how methods from computational algebraic geometry, differential algebra, Bayesian statistics an…
The paper surveys several results on the topology of the space of arcs of an algebraic variety and the Nash problem on the arc structure of singularities.
Given an ample real Hermitian holomorphic line bundle $L$ over a real algebraic variety $X$, the space of real holomorphic sections of $L^{\otimes d}$ inherits a natural Gaussian probability measure. We prove that the probability that the zero locus of a real holomorphic section $s$ of $L^{\otimes d}$ defines a maximal hypersurface tends to $0$ exponentially fast as $d$ goes to infinity. This extends to any dimension a result of Gayet and Welschinger valid for maximal real algebraic curves inside a real algebraic surface. The starting point is a low degree approximation property which relates …
We show that Berkovich analytic geometry can be viewed as relative algebraic geometry in the sense of Toën--Vaquié--Vezzosi over the category of non-Archimedean Banach spaces. For any closed symmetric monoidal quasi-abelian category we can define a topology on certain subcategories of the of the category of affine schemes with respect to this category. By examining this topology for the category of Banach spaces we recover the G-topology or the topology of admissible subsets on affinoids which is used in analytic geometry. This gives a functor of points approach to non-Archimedean analytic geo…
Let $f \colon \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ be a polynomial and $\mathcal{Z}(f)$ its zero set. In this paper, in terms of the so-called Newton polyhedron of $f,$ we present a necessary criterion and a sufficient condition for the compactness of $\mathcal{Z}(f).$ From this we derive necessary and sufficient criteria for the stable compactness of $\mathcal{Z}(f).$
For a variety over certain topological rings $R$, like $\mathbb{Z}_p$ or $\mathbb{C}$, there is a well-studied way to topologize the $R$-points on the variety. In this paper, we generalize this definition to algebraic stacks. For an algebraic stack $\mathfrak{X}$ over many topological rings $R$, we define a topology on the isomorphism classes of $R$-points of $\mathfrak{X}$. We prove expected properties of the resulting topological spaces including functoriality. Then, we extend the definition to the case when $R$ is the ring of adeles of some global field. Finally, we use this last definition…
In this article, we apply the approach of relative algebraic geometry towards analytic geometry to the category of bornological and Ind-Banach spaces (non-Archimedean or not). We are able to recast the theory of Grosse-Klönne dagger affinoid domains with their weak G-topology in this new language. We prove an abstract recognition principle for the generators of their standard topology (the morphisms appearing in the covers). We end with a sketch of an emerging theory of dagger affinoid spaces over the integers, or any Banach ring, where we can see the Archimedean and non-Archimedean worlds com…
Based on the reduction of degree in polynomial mappings and some known results in algebraic geometry, by introducing the Brouwer degree, a tool from differential topology, algebraic topology and algebraic geometry, we completely prove the Generalized Jacobian conjecture in the field of real numbers, which implies the Generalized complex Jacobian conjecture. Also, for the strong real Jacobian conjecture, we present a newly sufficient and necessary condition.