In this paper, we study the behavior of Ricci-flat K¨ahler metrics on Calabi–Yau manifolds under algebraic geometric surgeries: extremal transitions or flops. We prove a version of Candelas and de la Ossa’s conjecture: Ricci-flat Calabi–Yau manifolds related by extremal transitions and flops can be connected by a path consisting of continuous families of Ricci-flat Calabi–Yau manifolds and a compact metric space in the Gromov–Hausdorff topology. In an essential step of the proof of our main result, the convergence of Ricci-flat K¨ahler metrics on Calabi–Yau manifolds along a smoothing is established, which can be of independent interest.

Motivated by the Mario-Vafa formula of Hodge integrals and physicists' predictions on local Gromov-Witten invariants of toric Fano surfaces in a Calabi-Yau threefold, the third author conjectured a formula of certain Hodge integrals in terms of certain Chern-Simons invariants of the Hopf link. We prove this formula by virtual localization on moduli spaces of relative stable morphisms.

We solve the Plateau problem for marginally outer trapped surfaces in general Cauchy data sets. We employ the Perron method and tools from geometric measure theory to force and control a blow-up of Jang’s equation. Substantial new geometric insights regarding the lower order properties of marginally outer trapped surfaces are gained in the process. The techniques developed in this paper are flexible and can be adapted to other non-variational existence problems.

A two-dimensional periodic Schr\"{o}dingier operator is associated with every Lagrangian torus in the complex projective plane ${\mathbb C}P^2$. Using this operator we introduce an energy functional on the set of Lagrangian tori. It turns out this energy functional coincides with the Willmore functional $W^{-}$ introduced by Montiel and Urbano. We study the energy functional on a family of Hamiltonian-minimal Lagrangian tori and support the Montiel--Urbano conjecture that the minimum of the functional is achieved by the Clifford torus. We also study deformations of minimal Lagrangian tori and show that if a deformation preserves the conformal type of the torus, then it also preserves the area, i.e. preserves the value of the energy functional. In particular, the deformations generated by Novikov--Veselov equations preserve the area of minimal Lagrangian tori.

Let M⊂CN be a generic real-analytic submanifold of finite type, M′⊂CN′ be a real-analytic set, and p∈M, where we assume that N,N′⩾2. Let H:(CN,p)→CN′ be a formal holomorphic mapping sending M into M′, and let EM′ denote the set of points in M′ through which there passes a complex-analytic subvariety of positive dimension contained in M′. We show that, if H does not send M into EM′, then H must be convergent. As a consequence, we derive the convergence of all formal holomorphic mappings when M′ does not contain any complex-analytic subvariety of positive dimension, answering by this a long-standing open question in the field. More generally, we establish necessary conditions for the existence of divergent formal maps, even when the target real-analytic set is foliated by complex-analytic subvarieties, allowing us to settle additional convergence problems such as e.g. for transversal formal maps between Levi-non-degenerate hypersurfaces and for formal maps with range in the tube over the light cone.