Let U(n) be the unitary group, and u(n)¤ the dual of its Lie algebra, equipped with the Kirillov Poisson structure. In their 1983 paper, Guillemin-Sternberg introduced a densely defined Hamiltonian action of a torus of dimension (n−1)n/2 on u(n)¤, with moment map given by the Gelfand-Zeitlin coordinates. A few years later, Flaschka-Ratiu described a similar, ‘multiplicative’ GelfandZeitlin system for the Poisson Lie group U(n)¤. By the Ginzburg-Weinstein theorem, U(n)¤ is isomorphic to u(n)¤ as a Poisson manifold. Flaschka-Ratiu conjectured that one can choose the Ginzburg-Weinstein diffeomorphism in such a way that it intertwines the linear and nonlinear Gelfand-Zeitlin systems. Our main result gives a proof of this conjecture, and produces a canonical Ginzburg-Weinstein diffeomorphism.

This work uncovers the tropical analogue, for measured laminations, of the convex hull construction in decorated Teichm¨uller theory; namely, it is a study in coordinates of geometric degeneration to a point of Thurston’s boundary for Teichm¨uller space. This may offer a paradigm for the extension of the basic cell decomposition of Riemann’s moduli space to other contexts for general moduli spaces of flat connections on a surface. In any case, this discussion drastically simplifies aspects of previous related studies as is explained. Furthermore, a new class of measured laminations relative to an ideal cell decomposition of a surface is discovered in the limit. Finally, the tropical analogue of the convex hull construction inMinkowski space is formulated as an explicit algorithm that serially simplifies a triangulation with respect to a fixed lamination and has its own independent interest.

We prove the existence of a smooth minimizer of the Willmore energy in the class of conformal immersions of a given closed Riemann surface into IRn, n = 3, 4, if there is one conformal immersion with Willmore energy smaller than a certain bound Wn,p depending on codimension and genus p of the Riemann surface. For tori in codimension 1, we know W3,1 = 8 .

Using the weak solution of Inverse mean curvature flow, we prove the sharp Minkowski-type inequality for outward minimizing hypersurfaces in Schwarzschild space.

Let (X, g) be a compact Riemannian manifold with quasi-positive Riemannian scalar curvature. If there exists a complex structure J compatible with g, then the Kodaira dimension of (X, J) is equal to −∞ and the canonical bundle KX is not pseudo-effective. We also introduce the complex Yamabe number λc(X) for compact complex manifold X, and show that if λ_c(X) is greater than 0, then κ(X) is equal to −∞; moreover, if X is also spin, then the Hirzebruch A-hat genus \hat{A}(X) is zero.