Geometry and Analysis Seminar

This talk will present a new approach to the geometry of moduli spaces of hyperbolic monopoles.  It is well-known that the L^2 metric on the moduli space of hyperbolic monopoles, defined using a Coulomb gauge fixing condition, diverges. Recently we have shown that a supersymmetry-inspired gauge-fixing condition cures this divergence, resulting in a pluricomplex geometry that generalises the hyperkaehler geometry of euclidean monopole moduli spaces.  We will compare this with metrics introduced by Nash and Bielawski—Schwachhofer, and present explicit calculations of both metrics for charge 2 monopoles.

Gravitational instantons are complete 4-dimensional hyperkähler manifolds with square-integrable curvature tensor. I will address the question whether all gravitational instantons (of type ALG) can be obtained as Hitchin moduli spaces. In particular, I will explain how to compute the (hyperkähler) Torelli map for (weakly) parabolic Higgs bundles on the 4-punctured sphere. This is based on recent joint work with Fredrickson, Mazzeo and Swoboda.

Weighted flag varieties are generalizations of flag varieties and weighted projective spaces.  Although they are not usually homogeneous varieties, they are orbifolds and admit a torus action with isolated fixed points, and like ordinary flag varieties, their equivariant cohomology admits a Schubert basis.  This talk will be an introduction to weighted flag varieties, and will also discuss positivity.  Abe and Matsumura proved that the equivariant cohomology of weighted Grassmannians has a positivity property analogous to that for ordinary (non-weighted) flag varieties.  We prove a strengthened version of this result for arbitrary weighted flag varieties, along the way providing a geometric interpretation of the weighted roots of Abe and Matsumura.  This is joint work with Scott Larson.

In this talk, I present an explicit formula for the ADM mass of asymptotically locally Euclidean (ALE) almost Kähler manifolds. The formula expresses the mass in terms of the total Hermitian scalar curvature and topological data associated with the underlying almost complex structure, extending a result of Hein and LeBrun in the Kähler ALE case. The proof is based on a spin-c adaptation of Witten's proof of the positive mass conjecture in the spin case and is therefore distinct from previous complex-geometric methods. In dimension 4, I show that one can prove a positive mass theorem and a Penrose-type inequality for asymptotically Euclidean (AE) almost Kähler manifolds using this formula.

Given a Fano variety X with smooth anticanonical divisor D, one may consider the enumerative geometry of X, of the pair (X,D) or of D. A-model Quantum Lefschetz, Residue and Serre relate counts of genus 0 curves in X,  (X,D) and D. While the A-model statements are fairly involved, they become standard integral transforms when formulated as B-model correspondences within the Intrinsic Mirror Construction of Gross-Siebert. I will explain how this works. Time permitting, I will explain how for K-polystable del Pezzo surfaces, genus 0 log BPS instanton expansions transform into modular forms.

I will discuss recent and ongoing work (mostly with J. Zou).