L3

Abstract: It is known that many Calabi-Yau manifolds form a connected web. The question of whether all CY manifolds form a single web depends on the degree of singularity that is permitted for the varieties that connect  the distinct families of smooth manifolds. If only conifolds are allowed then, since shrinking two-spheres and three-spheres to points cannot affect the fundamental group, manifolds with different fundamental groups will form disconnected webs. We examine these webs for the tip of the distribution of CY manifolds where the Hodge numbers $(h^{11},h^{21})$ are both small. In the tip of the distribution the quotient manifolds play an important role. We generate via conifold transitions from these quotients a number of new manifolds. These include a manifold with $\chi =-6$, that is an analogue of the $\chi=-6$ manifold found by Yau,  and manifolds with an attractive structure that may prove of interest for string phenomenology.

Bridgeland's notion of stability condition allows us to associate a complex manifold, the space of stability conditions, to a triangulated category $D$. Each stability condition has a heart - an abelian subcategory of $D$ - and we can decompose the space of stability conditions into subsets where the heart is fixed. I will explain how (under some quite strong assumpions on $D$) the tilting theory of $D$ governs the geometry and combinatorics of the way in which these subsets fit together. The results will be illustrated by two simple examples: coherent sheaves on the projective line and constructible sheaves on the projective line stratified by a point and its complement.

Let X be a Gorenstein orbifold and Y a crepant resolution of

X. Suppose that the quantum cohomology algebra of Y is semisimple. We describe joint work with Iritani which shows that in this situation the genus-zero crepant resolution conjecture implies a higher-genus version of the crepant resolution conjecture. We expect that the higher-genus version in fact holds without the semisimplicity hypothesis.