In this article we study a conjecture of Geiss-Leclerc-Schröer, which is an analogue of a classical conjecture of Lusztig in the Weyl group case. It concerns the relation between canonical basis and semi-canonical basis through the characteristic cycles. We formulate an approach to this conjecture and prove it for type quiver. In the general type A case, we reduce the conjecture to show that certain nearby cycles have vanishing Euler characteristic.

Let (X, ) be a pair. We study how the condition (X, ) causes surjectivity or birationality of the Albanese map and the Albanese morphism of (X, ) in both characteristic (X, ) and characteristic (X, ) . In particular in characteristic (X, ) we generalize Kawamata's result to the cases of log canonial pairs, and in characteristic (X, ) we generalize a result of Hacon-Patakfalvi to the cases of log pairs. Moreover we show that if (X, ) is a normal projective threefold in characteristic (X, ) , the coefficients of the components of (X, ) are (X, ) and (X, ) is semiample, then the Albanese morphism of (X, ) is surjective under reasonable assumptions on (X, ) and the singularities of the general fibers of the Albanese morphism. This is a positive characteristic analog in dimension 3 of a result of Zhang on a conjecture of Demailly-Peternell-Schneider.

As a continuation of\lianyaufour, we study modular properties of the periods, the mirror maps and Yukawa couplings for multi-moduli Calabi-Yau varieties. In Part A of this paper, motivated by the recent work of Kachru-Vafa, we degenerate a three-moduli family of Calabi-Yau toric varieties along a codimension one subfamily which can be described by the vanishing of certain Mori coordinate, corresponding to going to the``large volume limit''in a certain direction. Then we see that the deformation space of the subfamily is the same as a certain family of K3 toric surfaces. This family can in turn be studied by further degeneration along a subfamily which in the end is described by a family of elliptic curves. The periods of the K3 family (and hence the original Calabi-Yau family) can be described by the squares of the periods of the elliptic curves. The consequences include:(1) proofs of various conjectural formulas of physicists\vk\lkm involving mirror maps and modular functions;(2) new identities involving multi-variable hypergeometric series and modular functions--generalizing\lianyaufour. In Part B, we study for two-moduli families the perturbation series of the mirror map and the type A Yukawa couplings near certain large volume limits. Our main tool is a new class of polynomial PDEs associated with Fuchsian PDE systems. We derive the first few terms in the perturbation series. For the case of degree 12 hypersurfaces in\P^ 4 [6, 2, 2, 1, 1], in one limit the series of the couplings are expressed in terms of the j function. In another limit, they are expressed in terms of rational functions. The latter give explicit formulas for infinite sequences of``instanton

We study BPS states of 5d N=1 SU(2) Yang-Mills theory on S^1×R^4. Geometric engineering relates these to enumerative invariants for the local Hirzebruch surface F_0. We illustrate computations of Vafa-Witten invariants via exponential networks, verifying fiber-base symmetry of the spectrum at certain points in moduli space, and matching with mirror descriptions based on quivers and exceptional collections. Albeit infinite, parts of the spectrum organize in families described by simple algebraic equations. Varying the radius of the M-theory circle interpolates smoothly with the spectrum of 4d N=2 Seiberg-Witten theory, recovering spectral networks in the limit.

Every smooth cubic plane curve has 9 flex points and 27 sextatic points. We study the following question asked by Farb: Is it true that the known algebraic structures give all the possible ways to continuously choose n distinct points on every smooth cubic plane curve, for each given positive integer n? We give an affirmative answer to the question when n=9 and 18 (the smallest open cases), and a negative answer for infinitely many n's.