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We find the shock wave solutions in a class of cosmological backgrounds with a null singularity, each of these backgrounds admits a matrix description. A shock wave solution breaks all supersymmetry meanwhile indicates that the interaction between two static D0-branes cancel, thus provides basic evidence for the matrix description. The probe action of a D0-brane in the background of another suggests that the usual perturbative expansion of matrix model breaks down.

In this paper we study the quantum sheaf cohomology of Grassmannians with deformations of the tangent bundle. Quantum sheaf cohomology is a (0,2) deformation of the ordinary quantum cohomology ring, realized as the OPE ring in A/2-twisted theories. Quantum sheaf cohomology has previously been computed for abelian gauged linear sigma models (GLSMs); here, we study (0,2) deformations of nonabelian GLSMs, for which previous methods have been intractable. Combined with the classical result, the quantum ring structure is derived from the one-loop effective potential. We also utilize recent advances in supersymmetric localization to compute A/2 correlation functions and check the general result in examples. In this paper we focus on physics derivations and examples; in a companion paper, we will provide a mathematically rigorous derivation of the classical sheaf cohomology ring.

When two topologically identical shapes are blended, various possible transformation paths exist from the source shape to the target shape. Which one is the most plausible? Here we propose that the transformation process should obey a quasi-physical law. This paper combines morphing with deformation theory from continuum mechanics. By using strain energy, which reflects the magnitude of deformation, as an objective function, we convert the problem of path interpolation into an unconstrained optimization problem. To reduce the number of variables in the optimization we adopt shape functions, as used in the finite element method (FEM). A point-to-point correspondence between the source and target shapes is naturally established using these polynomial functions plus a distance map.

Based on earlier work of the latter two named authors on the higher super-Teichmueller space with N=1, a component of the flat OSp(1\2) connections on a punctured surface, here we extend to the case N=2 of flat OSp(2\2) connections. Indeed, we construct here coordinates on the higher super-Teichmueller space of a surface F with at least one puncture associated to the supergroup OSp(2\2), which in particular specializes to give another treatment for N=1 simpler than the earlier work. The Minkowski space in the current case, where the corresponding super Fuchsian groups act, is replaced by the superspace R2,2\4, and the familiar lambda lengths are extended by odd invariants of triples of special isotropic vectors in R2,2\4 as well as extra bosonic parameters, which we call ratios, defining a flat R+-connection on F. As in the pure bosonic or N=1 cases, we derive the analogue of Ptolemy transformations for all these new variables.