We study analytic properties of harmonic maps from Riemannian polyhedra into CAT(κ) spaces for κ∈{0,1}. Locally, on each top-dimensional face of the domain, this amounts to studying harmonic maps from smooth domains into CAT(κ) spaces. We compute a target variation formula that captures the curvature bound in the target, and use it to prove an Lp Liouville-type theorem for harmonic maps from admissible polyhedra into convex CAT(κ) spaces. Another consequence we derive from the target variation formula is the Eells–Sampson Bochner formula for CAT(1) targets.

For stratified Mukai flops of type An,k,D2k+1 and E6,I , it is shown that the fiber product induces isomorphisms on Chow motives. In contrast to (standard) Mukai flops, the cup product is generally not preserved. For An,2, D5 and E6,I flops, quantum corrections are found through degeneration/deformation to ordinary flops.

We consider two natural problems arising in geometry which are equivalent to the local solvability of specific equations of Monge- Amp`ere type. These two problems are: the local isometric embedding problem for two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, and the problem of locally prescribed Gaussian curvature for surfaces in R3. We prove a general local existence result for a large class of Monge-Amp`ere equations in the plane, and obtain as corollaries the existence of regular solutions to both problems, in the case that the Gaussian curvature vanishes to arbitrary finite order on a single smooth curve.

Let Y be a non-singular projective manifold with an ample canonical sheaf, and let V be a Q-variation of Hodge structures of weight one on Y with Higgs bundle E1,0 ⊕ E0,1, coming from a family of Abelian varieties. If Y is a curve the Arakelov inequality says that the slopes satisfy μ(E1,0) − μ(E0,1) ≤ μ(­1 Y ). We prove a similar inequality in the higher dimensional case. If the latter is an equality, and if the discriminant of E1,0 or the one of E0,1 is zero, one hopes that Y is a Shimura variety, and V a uniformizing variation of Hodge structures. This is verified, in case the universal covering of Y does not contain factors of rank> 1. Part of the results extend to variations of Hodge structures over quasi-projective manifolds U.

This paper develops a novel computational technique to define and construct manifold splines with only one singular point by employing the rigorous mathematical theory of Ricci flow. The central idea and new computational paradigm of manifold splines are to systematically extend the algorithmic pipeline of spline surface construction from any planar domain to an arbitrary topology. As a result, manifold splines can unify planar spline representations as their special cases. Despite its earlier success, the existing manifold spline framework is plagued by the topology-dependent, large number of singular points (ie,| 2 g 2| for any genus-g surface), where the analysis of surface behaviors such as continuity remains extremely difficult. The unique theoretical contribution of this paper is that we devise new mathematical tools so that manifold splines can now be constructed with only one singular point, reaching their