Cosection localization for virtual fundamental classes of d-manifolds and Donaldson-Thomas invariants of Calabi-Yau fourfolds
2021-11-09 10:30 - 11:30 (America/New_York) | MA
Abstract: Localization by cosection, first introduced by Kiem-Li in 2010, is one of the fundamental techniques used to study invariants in complex enumerative geometry. Donaldson-Thomas (DT) invariants counting sheaves on Calabi-Yau fourfolds were first defined by Borisov-Joyce in 2015 by combining derived algebraic and differential geometry.
In this talk, we develop the theory of cosection localization for derived manifolds in the context of derived differential geometry of Joyce. As a consequence, we also obtain cosection localization results for (-2)-shifted symplectic derived schemes. This provides a cosection localization formalism for the Borisov-Joyce DT invariant. As an immediate application, the stable pair invariants of hyperkähler fourfolds, constructed by Maulik-Cao-Toda, vanish, as expected.

Cosection localization for virtual fundamental classes of d-manifolds and Donaldson-Thomas invariants of Calabi-Yau fourfolds
2021-11-09 10:30 - 22:30 | MA
Speaker: Michail Savvas, UT Austin
Title: Cosection localization for virtual fundamental classes of d-manifolds and Donaldson-Thomas invariants of Calabi-Yau fourfolds
Abstract: Localization by cosection, first introduced by Kiem-Li in 2010, is one of the fundamental techniques used to study invariants in complex enumerative geometry. Donaldson-Thomas (DT) invariants counting sheaves on Calabi-Yau fourfolds were first defined by Borisov-Joyce in 2015 by combining derived algebraic and differential geometry.
In this talk, we develop the theory of cosection localization for derived manifolds in the context of derived differential geometry of Joyce. As a consequence, we also obtain cosection localization results for (-2)-shifted symplectic derived schemes. This provides a cosection localization formalism for the Borisov-Joyce DT invariant. As an immediate application, the stable pair invariants of hyperkähler fourfolds, constructed by Maulik-Cao-Toda, vanish, as expected.

event

Organizer: Seminars

Hypergraph decompositions and their applications
2021-11-10 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Speaker: Peter Keevash, Oxford
Title: Hypergraph decompositions and their applications
Abstract: Many combinatorial objects can be thought of as a hypergraph decomposition, i.e. a partition of (the edge set of) one hypergraph into (the edge sets of) copies of some other hypergraphs. For example, a Steiner Triple System is equivalent to a decomposition of a complete graph into triangles. In general, Steiner Systems are equivalent to decompositions of complete uniform hypergraphs into other complete uniform hypergraphs (of some specified sizes). The Existence Conjecture for Combinatorial Designs, which I proved in 2014, states that, bar finitely many exceptions, such decompositions exist whenever the necessary ‘divisibility conditions’ hold. I also obtained a generalisation to the quasirandom setting, which implies an approximate formula for the number of designs; in particular, this resolved Wilson’s Conjecture on the number of Steiner Triple Systems. A more general result that I proved in 2018 on decomposing lattice-valued vectors indexed by labelled complexes provides many further existence and counting results for a wide range of combinatorial objects, such as resolvable designs (the generalised form of Kirkman’s Schoolgirl Problem), whist tournaments or generalised Sudoku squares. In this talk, I plan to review this background and then describe some more recent and ongoing applications of these results and developments of the ideas behind them.

Higher rank DT theory from rank 1
2021-11-10 16:00 - 17:00 | MA
Abstract: Fix a Calabi-Yau 3-fold X. Its DT invariants count stable bundles and sheaves on X. The generalised DT invariants of Joyce-Song count semistable bundles and sheaves on X. I will describe work with Soheyla Feyzbakhsh showing these generalised DT invariants in any rank r can be written in terms of rank 1 invariants. By the MNOP conjecture the latter are determined by the GW invariants of X. Along the way we also show they are determined by rank 0 invariants counting sheaves supported on surfaces in X. These invariants are predicted by S-duality to be governed by (vector-valued, mock) modular forms.

Sharp decay for Teukolsky equation in Kerr spacetimes
2021-11-11 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
Abstract: Teukolsky equation in Kerr spacetimes governs the dynamics of the spin $s$ components, $s=0, pm 1, pm 2$ corresponding to the scalar field, the Maxwell field, and the linearized gravity, respectively. I will discuss recent joint work with L. Zhang on proving the precise asymptotic profiles for these spin $s$ components in Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes.

Nonreciprocal matter: living chiral crystals
2021-11-11 13:00 - 14:30 | MA
Abstract: Active crystals are highly ordered structures that emerge from the nonequilibrium self-organization of motile objects, and have been widely studied in synthetic and bacterial active matter. In this talk, I will describe how swimming sea star embryos spontaneously assemble into chiral crystals that span thousands of spinning organisms and persist for tens of hours. Combining experiment, hydrodynamic theory, and simulations, we demonstrate that the formation, dynamics, and dissolution of these living crystals are controlled by the natural development of the embryos. Remarkably, due to nonreciprocal force and torque exchange between the embryos, the living chiral crystals exhibit self-sustained oscillations with dynamic signatures recently predicted to emerge in materials with odd elasticity.

11/11/21 Interdisciplinary Science Seminar
2021-11-11 14:22 - 15:22 | MA
Title: The Kervaire conjecture and the minimal complexity of surfaces
Abstract: We use topological methods to solve special cases of a fundamental problem in group theory, the Kervaire conjecture.
The conjecture asserts that, for any nontrivial group G and any element w in the free product G*Z, the quotient (G*Z)/<<w>> is still nontrivial. We interpret this as a problem of estimating the minimal complexity (in terms of Euler characteristic) of surfaces in HNN extensions. This gives a conceptually simple proof of Klyachko’s theorem that confirms the Kervaire conjecture for any G torsion-free. I will also explain new results obtained using this approach.

Universal relations between entanglement, symmetries, and entropy
2021-11-12 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Member Seminar
Speaker: Gabriel Wong
Title: Universal relations between entanglement, symmetries, and entropy
Abstract: Entanglement is an essential property of quantum systems that distinguishes them from classical ones. It is responsible for the nonlocal character of quantum information and provides a resource for quantum teleportation and quantum computation. In this talk I will provide an introduction to quantum entanglement and explain the essential role it plays in two seemingly unrelated subjects: implementation of measurement-based quantum computation and microstate counting of black holes in quantum gravity. Time permitting, I will also discuss attempts to characterize entanglement in string theory. A unifying theme that illuminates the entanglement structure of these diverse systems is the role of surface symmetries and (entanglement) edge modes. We will explain how these universal aspects of entanglement are captured in the framework of extended topological quantum field theory.

A degeneracy bound for homogeneous topological order
2021-11-12 14:30 - 16:00 | Virtual
Speaker: Jeongwan Haah (Microsoft)
Title: A degeneracy bound for homogeneous topological order

11/15/2021 – Swampland Seminar
2021-11-15 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
This week’s seminar will be an open mic discussion which will be led by Nima Arkani-Hamed (IAS), and by Gary Shiu (UW-Madison), and the topic will be “Swampland constraints, Unitarity and Causality”. They will start with a brief introduction sharing their thoughts about the topic and moderate a discussion afterwards.

11/16/21 Algebraic Geometry in String Theory
2021-11-16 09:30 - 10:30 | MA

Gromov-Witten theory of complete intersections
2021-11-16 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Abstract: I will describe an inductive algorithm computing Gromov-Witten invariants in all genera with arbitrary insertions of all smooth complete intersections in projective space. The main idea is to show that invariants with insertions of primitive cohomology classes are controlled by their monodromy and by invariants defined without primitive insertions but with imposed nodes in the domain curve. To compute these nodal Gromov-Witten invariants, we introduce the new notion of nodal relative Gromov-Witten invariants. This is joint work with Hülya Argüz, Rahul Pandharipande, and Dimitri Zvonkine (arxiv:2109.13323).

11/16/21 Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics
2021-11-16 15:00 - 16:30 | MA

Quantum Geometric Aspects of Chiral Twisted Graphene Models
2021-11-16 15:00 - 16:30 | Virtual
Speaker: Jie Wang (Simons Foundation)
Title: Quantum Geometric Aspects of Chiral Twisted Graphene Models
Abstract: “Moire” materials produced by stacking monolayers with small relative twist angles are of intense current interest for the range of correlated electron phenomena they exhibit. The quench of the kinetic energy means that the interacting physics is controlled by the interplay between the interaction scale and intrinsic quantum geometries of the flat band states, in particular the Berry curvature and the Fubini-Study metric, which are in general spatially non-uniform. We show that the analytical solution of the twisted bilayer graphene wavefunction in the chiral limit has a special band geometry, endowing the Brillouin zone with a complex structure. This talk focus on the origin of the momentum space complex structure, concrete models that realize it, and its implications to electron-electron interactions. We first show the momentum space complex structure in Chern number C=1 flatbands implies the Bloch wavefunction to exhibit an exact correspondence to the lowest Landau level in the dual momentum space [2]. We present a generalization of the Haldane pseudopotential concept to deal with interacting problems in these bands and discuss experimental implications [2]. We also present an analytically solvable multi-layer generalized chiral graphene model, which exhibits arbitrarily high Chern number and ideal quantum geometries [3]. Numerical studies of interacting particles indicate model fractional Chern insulators without Landau level analogues, characterized by exact degeneracies and infinite particle entanglement spectra gaps [3]. References:
[1] Jie Wang, Yunqin Zheng, Andrew J. Millis, Jennifer Cano (Phys. Rev. Research 3, 023155)
[2] Jie Wang, Jennifer Cano, Andrew J. Millis, Zhao Liu, Bo Yang (arXiv: 2105.07491, to appear in PRL)
[3] Jie Wang, Zhao Liu (arXiv: 2109.10325)

Curve counting on surfaces and topological strings
2021-11-17 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Speaker: Andrea Brini, U Sheffield
Title: Curve counting on surfaces and topological strings
Abstract: Enumerative geometry is a venerable subfield of Mathematics, with roots dating back to Greek Antiquity and a present inextricably linked with developments in other domains. Since the early 90s, in particular, the interaction with String Theory has sent shockwaves through the subject, giving both unexpected new perspectives and a remarkably powerful, physics-motivated toolkit to tackle several traditionally hard questions in the field.
I will survey some recent developments in this vein for the case of enumerative invariants associated to a pair (X, D), with X a complex algebraic surface and D a singular anticanonical divisor in it. I will describe a surprising web of correspondences linking together several a priori distant classes of enumerative invariants associated to (X, D), including the log Gromov-Witten invariants of the pair, the Gromov-Witten invariants of an associated higher dimensional Calabi-Yau variety, the open Gromov-Witten invariants of certain special Lagrangians in toric Calabi–Yau threefolds, the Donaldson–Thomas theory of a class of symmetric quivers, and certain open and closed Gopakumar-Vafa-type invariants. I will also discuss how these correspondences can be effectively used to provide a complete closed-form solution to the calculation of all these invariants.

11/18/2021 Interdisciplinary Science Seminar
2021-11-18 14:25 - 15:25 | MA
Title: Amplituhedra, Scattering Amplitudes and Triangulations
Abstract: In this talk I will discuss about Amplituhedra – generalizations of polytopes inside the Grassmannian – recently introduced by physicists as new geometric constructions encoding interactions of elementary particles in certain Quantum Field Theories. In particular, I will explain how the problem of finding triangulations of Amplituhedra is connected to computing scattering amplitudes of N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. Triangulations of polygons are encoded in the associahedron studied by Stasheff in the sixties; in the case of polytopes, triangulations are captured by secondary polytopes constructed by Gelfand et al. in the nineties. Whereas a “secondary” geometry describing triangulations of Amplituhedra is still not known, and we pave the way for such studies. We will discuss how the combinatorics of triangulations interplays with T-duality from String Theory, in connection with a dual object we define – the Momentum Amplituhedron. A generalization of T-duality led us to discover a striking duality between triangulations of Amplituhedra of “m=2” type and the ones of a seemingly unrelated object – the Hypersimplex. The latter is a polytope which has been central in many contexts, such as matroid theory, torus orbits in the Grassmannian, and tropical geometry. Based on joint works with Lauren Williams, Melissa Sherman-Bennett, Tomasz Lukowski [arXiv:2104.08254, arXiv:2002.06164].

11/18/21 Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics
2021-11-18 14:30 - 16:00 | MA

Exact Eigenstates in Non-Integrable Systems: A violation of the ETH
2021-11-18 14:30 - 16:00 | Virtual
Speaker: B. Andrei Bernevig (Princeton University)
Title: Exact Eigenstates in Non-Integrable Systems: A violation of the ETH
Abstract: We find that several non-integrable systems exhibit some exact eigenstates that span the energy spectrum from lowest to the highest state. In the AKLT Hamiltonian and in several others “special” non-integrable models, we are able to obtain the analytic expression of states exactly and to compute their entanglement spectrum and entropy to show that they violate the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. This represented the first example of ETH violation in a non-integrable system; these types of states have gained notoriety since then as quantum Scars in the context of Rydberg atoms experiments. We furthermore show that the structure of these states, in most models where they are found is that of an almost spectrum generating algebra which we call Restricted Spectrum Generating Algebra. This includes the (extended) Hubbard model, as well as some thin-torus limits of Fractional Quantum Hall states. Yet in other examples, such as the recently found chiral non-linear Luttinger liquid, their structure is more complicated and not understood.

Macroscopic properties of buyer-seller networks in online marketplaces
2021-11-18 17:52 - 18:52 | MA
Abstract: Online marketplaces are the main engines of legal and illegal e-commerce, yet the aggregate properties of buyer-seller networks behind them are poorly understood. We analyse two datasets containing 245M transactions (16B USD) between 2010 and 2021 involving online marketplaces: 28 dark web marketplaces (DWM), unregulated markets whose main currency is Bitcoin, and 144 product markets of one regulated e-commerce platform. We show how transactions in online marketplaces exhibit strikingly similar patterns of aggregate behavior despite significant differences in language, products, time, regulation, oversight, and technology. We find remarkable regularities in the distributions of (i) transaction amounts, (ii) number of transactions, (iii) inter-event times, (iv) time between first and last transactions. We then show how buyer behavior is affected by the memory of past interactions, and draw on these observations to propose a model of network formation able to reproduce the main stylised facts of the data. Our findings have important implications for understanding market power on online marketplaces as well as inter-marketplace competition.

China’s financial regulatory reform, financial opening-up, and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
2021-11-19 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Member Seminar
Speaker: Kan Lin
Title: China’s financial regulatory reform, financial opening-up, and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
Abstract: In this talk, I will explain the overall situation of China’s financial industry and review the development of China’s financial regulatory system reform from 1949 to 2021. Then, I will explain the policies of the 3 stages of financial opening-up, 2001–08, 2008–18, 2018≠present. In particular, the latest round of opening-up from 2018 has brought great opportunities for foreign institutions. China has the world’s largest banking industry with assets totaling $53 trillion, and accounts for 1/3 of the growth in global insurance premiums over the next 10 years. I will also introduce the progress of research & development of China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC, or E-CNY). By October 2021, 140 million people had opened E-CNY wallets, and 1.6 million merchants could accept payments using eCNY wallets, including utilities, catering services, transportation, retail, and government services.

On Curvature Propagation and ‘Breakdown’ of the Einstein Equations on U(1) Symmetric Spacetimes
2021-11-19 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
strong>Abstract: The analysis of global structure of the Einstein equations for general relativity, in the context of the initial value problem, is a difficult and intricate mathematical subject. Any additional structure in their formulation is welcome, in order to alleviate the problem. It is expected that the initial value problem of the Einstein equations on spacetimes admitting a translational, fixed-point free, spatial U(1) isometry group are globally well-posed. In our previous works, we discussed the special structure provided by the dimensional reduction of 3+1 dimensional U(1) symmetric Einstein equations to 2+1 Einstein-wave map system and demonstrated global existence in the equivariant case for large data. In this talk, after discussing some preliminaries and background, we shall discuss about yet another structure of the U(1) symmetric Einstein equations, namely the analogy with Yang-Mills theory via the Cartan formalism and reconcile with the dimensionally reduced field equations. We shall also discuss implications for ‘breakdown’ criteria of U(1) symmetric Einstein equations.

Taming the Landscape
2021-11-22 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
Abstract: In this talk I will introduce a generalized notion of finiteness that provides a structural principle for the set of effective theories that can be consistently coupled to quantum gravity. More concretely, I will propose a ‘tameness conjecture’ that states that all scalar field spaces and coupling functions that appear in such an effective theory must be definable in an o-minimal structure. The fascinating field of tame geometry has seen much recent progress and I will argue that the results can be used to support the above swampland conjecture. The strongest evidence arises from a new finiteness theorem for the flux landscape which is shown using the tameness of the period map.

Wall crossing for moduli of stable log varieties
2021-11-23 09:30 - 10:30 | MA

Prague dimension of random graphs
2021-11-23 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Abstract: The Prague dimension of graphs was introduced by Nesetril, Pultr and Rodl in the 1970s: as a combinatorial measure of complexity, it is closely related to clique edges coverings and partitions. Proving a conjecture of Furedi and Kantor, we show that the Prague dimension of the binomial random graph is typically of order n/(log n) for constant edge-probabilities. The main new proof ingredient is a Pippenger-Spencer type edge-coloring result for random hypergraphs with large uniformities, i.e., edges of size O(log n).

11/24/21 Quantum Matter in Mathematics and Physics
2021-11-24 10:30 - 12:00 | MA

Multipartitioning topological phases and quantum entanglement
2021-11-24 10:30 - 12:00 | Virtual
Speaker: Shinsei Ryu (Princeton University)
Title: Multipartitioning topological phases and quantum entanglement
Abstract: We discuss multipartitions of the gapped ground states of (2+1)-dimensional topological liquids into three (or more) spatial regions that are adjacent to each other and meet at points. By considering the reduced density matrix obtained by tracing over a subset of the regions, we compute various correlation measures, such as entanglement negativity, reflected entropy, and associated spectra. We utilize the bulk-boundary correspondence to achieve such multipartitions and construct the reduced density matrix near the entangling boundaries. We find the fingerprints of topological liquid in these quantities, such as (universal pieces in) the scaling of the entanglement negativity, and a non-trivial distribution of the spectrum of the partially transposed density matrix.

Quantum cohomology as a deformation of symplectic cohomology
2021-11-24 16:00 - 17:00 | MA
Abstract: Let X be a compact symplectic manifold, and D a normal crossings symplectic divisor in X. We give a criterion under which the quantum cohomology of X is the cohomology of a natural deformation of the symplectic cochain complex of X D. The criterion can be thought of in terms of the Kodaira dimension of X (which should be non-positive), and the log Kodaira dimension of X D (which should be non-negative). We will discuss applications to mirror symmetry. This is joint work with Strom Borman and Umut Varolgunes.

Scale separated AdS vacua?
2021-11-29 13:00 - 14:00 | MA
Abstract: In this talk I will review massive type IIA flux compactifications that seem to give rise to infinite families of supersymmetric 4d AdS vacua. These vacua provide an interesting testing ground for the swampland program. After reviewing potential shortcomings of this setup, I will discuss recent progress on overcoming them and getting a better understanding of these solutions.

K_2 and Quantum Curves
2021-11-30 09:30 - 10:30 | Virtual

Resistance curvature – a new discrete curvature on graphs
2021-11-30 09:30 - 10:30 | MA
Abstract: The last few decades have seen a surge of interest in building towards a theory of discrete curvature that attempts to translate the key properties of curvature in differential geometry to the setting of discrete objects and spaces. In the case of graphs there have been several successful proposals, for instance by Lin-Lu-Yau, Forman and Ollivier, that replicate important curvature theorems and have inspired applications in a variety of practical settings.
In this talk, I will introduce a new notion of discrete curvature on graphs, which we call the resistance curvature, and discuss some of its basic properties. The resistance curvature is defined based on the concept of effective resistance which is a metric between the vertices of a graph and has many other properties such as a close relation to random spanning trees. The rich theory of these effective resistances allows to study the resistance curvature in great detail; I will for instance show that “Lin-Lu-Yau >= resistance >= Forman curvature” in a specific sense, show strong evidence that the resistance curvature converges to zero in expectation for Euclidean random graphs, and give a connectivity theorem for positively curved graphs. The resistance curvature also has a naturally associated discrete Ricci flow which is a gradient flow and has a closed-form solution in the case of vertex-transitive and path graphs.
Finally, if time permits I will draw a connection with the geometry of hyperacute simplices, following the work of Miroslav Fiedler.
This work was done in collaboration with Renaud Lambiotte.
