After Bershadsky-Cecotti-Ooguri-Vafa, we introduce an invariant of Calabi-Yau threefolds, which we call the BCOV invariant and which we obtain using analytic torsion. We give an explicit formula for the BCOV invariant as a function on the compactified moduli space, when it is isomorphic to a projective line. As a corollary, we prove the formula for the BCOV invariant of quintic mirror threefolds conjectured by Bershadsky-Cecotti-Ooguri-Vafa.

We prove that a stable minimal hypersurface of an open ball which is immersed away from a closed (singular) set of finite codimension 2 Hausdorff measure and weakly close to a multiplicity 2 hyperplane must in the interior be the graph over the hyperplane of a 2-valued function satisfying a local C1, estimate. This regularity is optimal under our hypotheses. As a consequence, we also establish compactness of the class of stable minimal hypersur- faces of an open ball which have volume density ratios uniformly bounded by 3−δ for any fixed δ ∈ (0, 1) and interior singular sets of vanishing co-dimension 2 Hausdorff measure.

The Wess-Zumino-Witten term was first introduced in the low energy σ-model which describes pions, the Goldstone bosons for the broken flavor symmetry in quantum chromodynamics. We introduce a new definition of this term in arbitrary gravitational backgrounds. It matches several features of the fundamental gauge theory, including the presence of fermionic states and the anomaly of the flavor symmetry. To achieve this matching, we use a certain generalized differential cohomology theory. We also prove a formula for the determinant line bundle of special families of Dirac operators on 4-manifolds in terms of this cohomology theory. One consequence is that there are no global anomalies in the Standard Model (in arbitrary gravitational backgrounds).

The paper deals with a variational approach of the subRiemannian geometry from the point of view of Hamilton-Jacobi and Hamiltonian formalism. We present a discussion of geodesics from the point of view of both formalisms, and prove that the normal geodesics are locally length-minimizing horizontal curves.

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Compact locally maximal hyperbolic sets are studied via geometrically defined functional spaces that take advantage of the smoothness of the map in a neighborhood of the hyperbolic set. This provides a self-contained theory that not only reproduces all the known classical results, but also gives new insights on the statistical properties of these systems.

The paper develops an existence theory for solutions of the Abreu equation, which include extremal metrics on toric surfaces. The technique employed is a continuity method, combined with “blow-up” arguments. General existence results are obtained, assuming a hypothesis (the “M-condition”) on the solutions, which is shown to be related to the injectivity radius.

Let .. be the fundamental group of a compact riemannian manifold X of sectional curvature K ≤ .1 and dimension n ≥ 3. We suppose that .. = A .C B is the free product of its subgroups A and B amalgamated over the subgroup C. We prove that the critical exponent δ(C) of C satisfies δ(C) ≥ n.2. The equality occurs if and only if there exist an embedded compact hypersurface Y . X, totally geodesic, of constant sectional curvature .1, whose fundamental group is C and which separates X in two connected components whose fundamental groups are A and B respectively. Similar results hold if .. is an HNN extension, or more generally if .. acts on a simplicial tree without fixed point.

Let T be the Teichm¨uller space of marked genus g, n punctured Riemann surfaces with its bordification T the augmented Teichm ¨uller space of marked Riemann surfaces with nodes, [Abi77,Ber74]. Provided with the WP metric, T is a complete CAT(0) metric space, [DW03,Wol03, Yam04]. An invariant of a marked hyperbolic structure is the length ℓ of the geodesic α in a free homotopy class. A basic feature of Teichm¨uller theory is the interplay of two-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, Weil-Petersson (WP) geometry and the behavior of geodesic-length functions. Our goal is to develop an understanding of the intrinsic local WP geometry through a study of the gradient and Hessian of geodesic-length functions. Considerations include expansions for the WP pairing of gradients, expansions for the Hessian and covariant derivative, comparability models for the WP metric, as well as the behavior of WP geodesics, including a description of the Alexandrov tangent cone at the augmentation. Approximations and applications for geodesics close to the augmentation are developed. An application for fixed points of group actions is described. Bounding configurations and functions on the hyperbolic plane is basic to our approach. Considerations include analyzing the orbit of a discrete group of isometries and bounding sums of the inverse square exponential-distance.

We prove the existence of embedded minimal surfaces of arbitrary genus g ≥ 3 in any flat 3-torus. In fact, we construct a sequence of such surfaces converging to a planar foliation of the 3-torus. In particular, the area of the surface can be chosen arbitrarily large.

Evolving smooth, compact hypersurfaces in Rn+1 with normal speed equal to a positive power k of the mean curvature improves a certain ‘isoperimetric difference’ for k > n.1. As singularities may develop before the volume goes to zero, we develop a weak level-set formulation for such flows and show that the above monotonicity is still valid. This proves the isoperimetric inequality for n 6 7. Extending this to complete, simply connected 3-dimensional manifolds with nonpositive sectional curvature, we give a new proof for the Euclidean isoperimetric inequality on such manifolds.

A version of the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of a Calabi-Yau threefold is proposed as a conjectural mathematical definition of the Gopakumar-Vafa invariants. These invariants have a local version, which is verified to satisfy the required properties for contractible curves. This provides a new viewpoint on the computation of the local Gromov-Witten invariants of contractible curves by Bryan, Leung, and the author.

Let (Mn, g) be a complete non-compact K¨ahler manifold with non-negative and bounded holomorphic bisectional curvature. We prove that M is holomorphically covered by a pseudoconvex domain in Cn which is homeomorphic to R2n, provided (Mn, g) has uniform linear average quadratic curvature decay.

We prove a general maximum principle at infinity for properly immersed minimal surfaces with boundary in R^3. An important corollary of this maximum principle at infinity is the existence of a fixed sized regular neighborhood for any properly embedded minimal surface of bounded curvature.

We investigate the minimal and isoperimetric surface problems in a large class of sub-Riemannian manifolds, the so-called Vertically Rigid spaces. We construct an adapted connection for such spaces and, using the variational tools of Bryant, Griffiths and Grossman, derive succinct forms of the Euler-Lagrange equations for critical points for the associated variational problems. Using the Euler-Lagrange equations, we show that minimal and isoperimetric surfaces satisfy a constant horizontal mean curvature conditions away from characteristic points. Moreover, we use the formalism to construct a horizontal second fundamental form, II0, for vertically rigid spaces and, as a first application, use II0 to show that minimal surfaces cannot have points of horizontal positive curvature and that minimal surfaces in Carnot groups cannot be locally strictly horizontally geometrically convex. We note that the convexity condition is distinct from others currently in the literature.

We describe a general geometrical construction of representations of fundamental groups of 3-manifolds into PU(2, 1) and eventually of spherical CR structures defined on those 3-manifolds. We construct branched spherical CR structures on the complement of the figure eight knot and the Whitehead link. They have discrete holonomies contained in PU(2, 1,Z[ω]) and PU(2, 1,Z[i]) respectively.

We prove that an extreme Kerr initial data set is a unique absolute minimum of the total mass in a (physically relevant) class of vacuum, maximal, asymptotically flat, axisymmetric data for Einstein equations with fixed angular momentum. These data represent non-stationary, axially symmetric black holes. As a consequence, we obtain that any data in this class satisfy the inequality √J ≤ m, where m and J are the total mass and angular momentum of spacetime.

An odd Seiberg-Witten invariant imposes bounds on the signature of a closed, almost complex 4-manifold with vanishing first Chern class. This applies in particular to symplectic 4-manifolds of Kodaira dimension zero.

We generalize the results of Adams–Schoenfeld [2], finding large classes of totally geodesic Seifert surfaces in hyperbolic knot and link complements, each covering a rigid 2-orbifold embedded in some hyperbolic 3-orbifold. In addition, we provide a uniqueness theorem and demonstrate that many knots cannot possess totally geodesic Seifert surfaces by giving bounds on the width invariant in the presence of such a surface. Finally, we utilize these examples to demonstrate that the Six Theorem is sharp for knot complements in the 3-sphere.

We discuss the uniruledness of various base loci of linear systems related to the canonical divisor. In particular we prove that the stable base locus of the canonical divisor of a smooth projective variety of general type is covered by rational curves.

In this paper we prove that given a point p ∈ Mn, where Mn is a closed Riemannian manifold of dimension n, the length of a shortest geodesic loop lp(Mn) at this point is bounded above by 2nd, where d is the diameter of Mn. Moreover, we show that on a closed simply connected Riemannian manifold Mn with a nontrivial second homotopy group there either exist at least three geodesic loops of length less than or equal to 2d at each point of Mn, or the length of a shortest closed geodesic on Mn is bounded from above by 4d.

Let X → B be a proper flat morphism between smooth quasiprojective varieties of relative dimension n, and L → X a line bundle which is ample on the fibers. We establish formulas for the first two terms in the Knudsen-Mumford expansion for det(πLk) in terms of Deligne pairings of L and the relative canonical bundle K. This generalizes the theorem of Deligne [1], which holds for families of relative dimension one. As a corollary, we show that when X is smooth, the line bundle η associated to X → B, which was introduced in Phong-Sturm [12], coincides with the CM bundle defined by Paul-Tian [10, 11]. In a second and third corollaries, we establish asymptotics for the K-energy along Bergman rays generalizing the formulas obtained in [11].

In this note the fractional analytic index, for a projective elliptic operator associated to an Azumaya bundle, of [5] is related to the equivariant index of [1, 6] for an associated transversally elliptic operator.

Given a hyperbolic 3–manifold with torus boundary, we bound the change in volume under a Dehn filling where all slopes have length at least 2π. This result is applied to give explicit diagrammatic bounds on the volumes of many knots and links, as well as their Dehn fillings and branched covers. Finally, we use this result to bound the volumes of knots in terms of the coefficients of their Jones polynomials.