Calendar

Supersymmetric gauge theories encode deep structures in algebraic geometry, and geometric engineering gives a powerful way to understand the underlying structures by string/M theory. In this talk we will see how the dynamics of M5 branes tell us about the motivic and semiorthogonal decompositions of moduli of bundles on curves.

Please note that there will be a pre-talk by Kai Xu from 10:00 am before the main talk at 10:30

Gravitational instantons were introduced by Hawking as building blocks of his Euclidean quantum gravity theory back in the 1970s. These are non-compact Calabi-Yau surfaces with L2 curvature and thus can be viewed as the non-compact analogue of K3 surfaces. K3 surfaces are 2-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifolds and are usually the testing stone before conquering the general Calabi-Yau problems. The moduli space of K3 surfaces and its compactification on their own form important problems in various branches in geometry. In this talk, we will discuss the Torelli theorem of gravitational instantons, how the cohomological invariants of a gravitational instanton determine them. As a consequence, this leads to a description of the moduli space of gravitational instantons.

Classification of singularities is an interesting problem in many areas of algebraic geometry, like the minimal model program. One classical approach is to assign to a variety a rational number, its log canonical threshold. For complex hypersurface singularities, this invariant has been refined by M. Saito to the minimal exponent. This invariant is related to Bernstein-Sato polynomials, Hodge ideals and higher du Bois and higher rational singularities.

In joint work with Qianyu Chen, Mircea Mustață and Sebastián Olano, we defined the minimal exponent for LCI subvarieties of smooth complex varieties. We relate it to local cohomology, higher du Bois and higher rational singularities. I will describe what was done in the hypersurface case, give our definition in the LCI case and explain the relation to local cohomology modules and the classification of singularities.

Weissauer proved using the theory of endoscopy that the Galois representations associated to classical modular forms of weight two appear in the middle cohomology of both a modular curve and a Siegel modular threefold. Correspondingly, there are large families of Tate classes on the product of these two Shimura varieties, and it is natural to ask whether one can construct algebraic cycles giving rise to these Tate classes. It turns out that a natural algebraic cycle generates some, but not all, of the Tate classes: to be precise, it generates exactly the Tate classes which are associated to generic members of the endoscopic L-packets on GSp₄. In the non-generic case, one can at least show that all the Tate classes arise from Hodge cycles. For this talk, I’ll focus on the behavior of the algebraic cycle class. NB: This talk is independent of the one in last week’s number theorists’ seminar.