Let V be a convex vector bundle over a smooth projective manifold X, and let Y be the subset of X which is the zero locus of a regular section of V. This mostly expository paper discusses a conjecture which relates the virtual fundamental classes of X and Y. Using an argument due to Gathmann, we prove a special case of the conjecture. The paper concludes with a discussion of how our conjecture relates to the mirror theorems in the literature.

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Motivated by mirror symmetry, we study certain integral representations of solutions to the Gelfand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky (GKZ) hypergeometric system. Some of these solutions arise as period integrals for Calabi-Yau manifolds in mirror symmetry. We prove that for a suitable compactification of the parameter space, there exist certain special boundary points, which we called maximal degeneracy points, at which all solutions but one become singular.

We investigate birational boundedness of Fano varieties and Fano fibrations. We establish an inductive step towards birational boundedness of Fano fibrations via conjectures related to bound- edness of Fano varieties and Fano fibrations. As corollaries, we provide approaches towards birational boundedness and boundedness of anti-canonical volumes of varieties of ε-Fano type. Furthermore, we show birational boundedness of 3-folds of ε-Fano type.

We discuss conjectures following from the attractor mechanism in type II string theory about the possible Chern classes of stable holomorphic vector bundles on Calabi-Yau threefolds. In particular, we give sufficient conditions for Chern classes to correspond to stable bundles.