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What is the shape of a uniformly massive object that generates a gravitational potential equivalent to that of two equal point-masses? If the weight of each point-mass is sufficiently small compared to the distance between the points then the answer is a pair of balls of equal radius, one centered at each of the two points, but otherwise it is a certain domain of revolution about the axis passing through the two points. The existence and uniqueness of such a domain is known, but an explicit parameterization is known only in the plane where the region is referred to as a Neumann oval. We construct a four-dimensional “Neumann ovaloid”, solving explicitly this inverse potential problem.

Heegaard diagrams on the boundary of a handlebody are studied from the dynamics systems point of view. A relationship between the strongly irreducible condition of CassonGordan and the Masur's domain of discontinuity for the action of the handlebody group is established.

In this paper, we study the Pontryagin numbers of 24 dimensional String manifolds. In partic- ular, we find representatives of an integral basis of the String cobrodism group at dimension 24, based on the work of Mahowald and Hopkins (The structure of 24 dimensional manifolds having normal bundles which lift to B O [8], from “Recent progress in homotopy theory” (D. M. Davis, J. Morava, G. Nishida, W. S. Wilson, N. Yagita, editors), Contemp. Math. 293, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 89-110, 2002), Borel and Hirzebruch (Am J Math 80: 459–538, 1958) and Wall (Ann Math 75:163–198, 1962). This has immediate applications on the divisibility of various characteristic numbers of the manifolds. In particular, we establish the 2-primary divisibilities of the signature and of the modified signature coupling with the integral Wu class of Hopkins and Singer (J Differ Geom 70:329–452, 2005), and also the 3- primary divisibility of the twisted signature. Our results provide potential clues to understand a question of Teichner.

We study the deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills (dHYM) equation, which is mirror to the special Lagrangian equation, from the variational point of view via an infinite dimensional GIT problem mirror to Thomas' GIT picture for special Lagrangians. This gives rise to infinite dimensional manifold $\mathcal{H}$ mirror to Solomon's space of positive Lagrangians. In the hypercritical phase case we prove the existence of smooth approximate geodesics, and weak geodesics with $C^{1,\alpha}$ regularity. This is accomplished by proving sharp with respect to scale estimates for the Lagrangian phase operator on collapsing manifolds with boundary. We apply these results to the infinite dimensional GIT problem for deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills. We associate algebraic invariants to certain birational models of $X\times \Delta$, where $\Delta \subset \mathbb{C}$ is a disk. Using the existence of regular weak geodesics we prove that these invariants give rise to obstructions to the existence of solutions to the dHYM equation. Furthermore, we show that these invariants fit into a stability framework closely related to Bridgeland stability. Finally, we use a Fourier-Mukai transform on toric K\"ahler manifolds to describe degenerations of Lagrangian sections of SYZ torus fibrations of Landau-Ginzburg models $(Y,W)$. We speculate on the resulting algebraic invariants, and discuss the implications for relating Bridgeland stability to the existence of special Lagrangian sections of $(Y,W)$.