In this paper, we prove that for any Kähler metrics ω and χ on M, there exists a Kähler metric ω_φ = ω_0 + √-1 ∂ \bar∂ φ > 0 satisfying the J-equation tr_{ω_φ} χ = c if and only if (M, [ω0], [χ]) is uniformly J-stable. As a corollary, we find a sufficient condition for the existence of constant scalar curvature Kähler metrics with c_1 < 0. Using the same method, we also prove a similar result for the supercritical deformed Hermitian–Yang–Mills equation.

We prove a finiteness property of the values of the skein polynomial of homogeneous knots that allows us to establish large classes of such knots to have arbitrarily unsharp Bennequin inequality (for the Thurston-Bennequin invariant of any of their Legendrian embeddings in the standard contact structure of R3). We also give a short proof that there are only finitely many such knots that have given genus and given braid index.

In this survey, we discuss some recent results on free boundary minimal surfaces in the Euclidean unit-ball. The subject has been a very active field of research in the past few years due to the seminal work of Fraser and Schoen on the extremal Steklov eigenvalue problem. We review several different techniques of constructing examples of embedded free boundary minimal surfaces in the unit ball. Next, we discuss some uniqueness results for free boundary minimal disks and the conjecture about the uniqueness of critical catenoid. We also discuss several Morse index estimates for free boundary minimal surfaces. Moreover, we describe estimates for the first Steklov eigenvalue on such free boundary minimal surfaces and various smooth compactness results. Finally, we mention some sharp area bounds for free boundary minimal submanifolds and related questions.

Recently Freed and Hopkins [11] proved that there is no parity anomaly in M-theory on pin+ manifolds in the low-energy field theory approximation, and they also developed an algebraic theory of cubic forms. Earlier Witten [33] proved the anomaly cancellation for spin manifolds by introducing the E8-bundle technique. Motivated by the cubic forms and the anomaly cancellation formulas of Witten-Freed-Hopkins, we give some new cubic forms on spin, spinc, spinω2 and orientable 12- manifolds respectively. We relate them to η-invariants when the manifolds are with boundary, and mod 2 indices on 10 dimensional characteristic submanifolds when the manifolds are spinc or spinω2 . Our method of producing these cubic forms is a combination of (generalized) Witten classes and the character of the basic representation of affine E8.

In the general, this article addresses the nature of, and relation between, canonical and log-canonical singularities of foliations by curves. The case of equivariance under a finite group action has several peculiarities, amongst which are examples from dimension 3 onward where no birational modification can be both Gorenstein and log-canonical. The article in the specific, i.e. a functorial resolution algorithm for foliated 3-folds in the 2-category of Deligne-Mumford champs, is thus not only optimal but natural.