H. Hopf showed that the only constant mean curvature sphere S2 immersed in R3 is the round sphere. The K¨ahler framework is an adequate approach to generalize Hopf’ s theorem to higher dimensions. When ϕ : M → Rn is an isometric immersion from a K¨ahler manifold, the complexified second fundamental form α splits according to types. The (1, 1) part of the second fundamental form plays the role of the mean curvature for surfaces and will be called the pluri-mean curvature pmc. Therefore isometric immersions with parallel pluri-mean curvature (ppmc isometric immersions) generalize in a natural way the cmc immersions. It is a standard fact that R8 is the smallest space where CP2 can be embedded. The aim of this work is to generalize Hopf’s theorem proving in particular that the only ppmc isometric immersion from CP2 into R8 is the standard immersion.

Let M be a complete non-compact Riemannian manifold whose sectional curvature is bounded between two constants-k and K. Then one expects that the heat diffusion in such a manifold behaves like the heat diffusion in Euclidean space. The purpose of this paper is to give a justi-fication of such a statement.

For a toric Calabi-Yau (CY) orbifold X whose underlying toric variety is semi-projective, we construct and study a non-toric Lagrangian torus fibration on X, which we call the Gross fibration. We apply the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow (SYZ) recipe to the Gross fibration of X to construct its mirror with the instanton corrections coming from genus 0 open orbifold Gromov-Witten (GW) invariants, which are virtual counts of holomorphic orbi-disks in X bounded by fibers of the Gross fibration. We explicitly evaluate all these invariants by first proving an open/closed equality and then employing the toric mirror theorem for suitable toric (parital) compactifications of X. Our calculations are then applied to (1) prove a conjecture of Gross-Siebert on a relation between genus 0 open orbifold GW invariants and mirror maps of X – this is called the open mirror theorem, which leads to an enumerative meaning of mirror maps, and (2) demonstrate how open (orbifold) GW invariants for toric CY orbifolds change under toric crepant resolutions – an open analogue of Ruan’s crepant resolution conjecture.

We define analytic torsion (X, E,H) 2 detH•(X, E,H) for the twisted de Rham complex, consisting of the spaces of differential forms on a compact oriented Riemannian manifold X valued in a flat vector bundle E, with a differential given by rE + H ^ · , where rE is a flat connection on E, H is an odd-degree closed differential form on X, and H•(X, E,H) denotes the cohomology of this Z2-graded complex. The definition uses pseudodifferential operators and residue traces. We show that when dimX is odd, (X, E,H) is independent of the choice of metrics on X and E and of the representative H in the cohomology class [H]. We define twisted analytic torsion in the context of generalized geometry and show that when H is a 3-form, the deformation H 7! H−dB, where B is a 2-form on X, is equivalent to deforming a usual metric g to a generalized metric (g,B). We demonstrate some basic functorial properties. When H is a top-degree form, we compute the torsion, define its simplicial counterpart, and prove an analogue of the Cheeger-M¨uller Theorem. We also study the twisted analytic torsion for T -dual circle bundles with integral 3- form fluxes.

We survey our recent new results on the geometry of Teichmuller and moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces and Calabi-Yau manifolds.