This paper is mainly inspired by the conjecture about the existence of bound states for magnetic Neumann Laplacians on planar wedges of any aperture <i></i> (0, <i></i>). So far, a proof was only obtained for apertures <i></i> 0.511. The conviction in the validity of this conjecture for apertures <i></i> 0.511<i></i> mainly relied on numerical computations. In this paper we succeed to prove the existence of bound states for any aperture <i></i> 0.583 using a variational argument with suitably chosen test functions. Employing some more involved test functions and combining a variational argument with computer assistance, we extend this interval up to any aperture <i></i> 0.595<i></i>. Moreover, we analyse the same question for closely related problems concerning magnetic Robin Laplacians on wedges and for magnetic Schrdinger operators in the plane with <i></i>-interactions supported on broken lines.

We consider the Einstein/Yang-Mills equations in 3+ 1 space time dimensions with SU (2) gauge group and prove rigorously the existence of a globally defined smooth static solution. We show that the associated Einstein metric is asymptotically flat and the total mass is finite. Thus, for non-abelian gauge fields the Yang/Mills repulsive force can balance the gravitational attractive force and prevent the formation of singularities in spacetime.

We describe the applications of localization methods, in particular the functorial localization formula, in the proofs of several conjectures from string theory. Functorial localization formula pushes the computations on complicated moduli spaces to simple moduli spaces. It is a key technique in the proof of the general mirror formulas, the proof of the Hori-Vafa formulas for explicit expressions of basic hypergeometric series of homogeneous manifolds, the proof of the Mario-Vafa formula, its generalizations to two partition analogue. We will also discuss our development of the mathematical theory of topological vertex and simple localization proofs of the ELSV formula and Witten conjecture.

We consider a static, spherically symmetric system of a Dirac particle in a classical gravitational and SU (2) Yang-Mills field. We prove that the only black-hole solutions of the corresponding Einstein-Dirac-Yang/Mills equations are the Bartnik-McKinnon black-hole solutions of the SU (2) Einstein-Yang/Mills equations; thus the spinors must vanish identically. This indicates that the Dirac particles must either disappear into the black-hole or escape to infinity.

The Cauchy problem is considered for the scalar wave equation in the Kerr geometry. We prove that by choosing a suitable wave packet as initial data, one can extract energy from the black hole, thereby putting supperradiance, the wave analogue of the Penrose process, into a rigorous mathematical framework. We quantify the maximal energy gain. We also compute the infinitesimal change of mass and angular momentum of the black hole, in agreement with Christodoulous result for the Penrose process. The main mathematical tool is our previously derived integral representation of the wave propagator.