We study the set of connected components of certain unions of affine Deligne-Lusztig varieties arising from the study of Shimura varieties. We determine the set of connected components for basic $\s $-conjugacy classes. As an application, we verify the Axioms in\cite {HR} for certain PEL type Shimura varieties. We also show that for any nonbasic $\s $-conjugacy class in a residually split group, the set of connected components is" controlled" by the set of straight elements associated to the $\s $-conjugacy class, together with the obstruction from the corresponding Levi subgroup. Combined with\cite {Zhou}, this allows one to verify in the residually split case, the description of the mod- p isogeny classes on Shimura varieties conjectured by Langland and Rapoport. Along the way, we determine the Picard group of the Witt vector affine Grassmannian of\cite {BS} and\cite {Zhu} which is of independent interest.

We discuss the Kodaira problem for uniruled Kähler spaces. Building on a construction due to Voisin, we give an example of a uniruled Kähler space X such that every run of the K_X-MMP immediately terminates with a Mori fibre space, yet X does not admit an algebraic approximation. Our example also shows that for a Mori fibration, approximability of the base does not imply approximability of the total space.

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.

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.

We have developed a mathematical theory of the topological vertexa theory that was originally proposed by M Aganagic, A Klemm, M Mario and C Vafa on effectively computing GromovWitten invariants of smooth toric CalabiYau threefolds derived from duality between open string theory of smooth CalabiYau threefolds and ChernSimons theory on three-manifolds.