In this paper we realize the moduli spaces of singular sextic curves with specified symmetry type as arithmetic quotients of complex hyperbolic balls or type IV domains. We also identify their GIT compactifications with the Looijenga compactifications of the corresponding period domains, most of which are actually Baily-Borel compactifications.

We study the quantum sheaf cohomology of flag manifolds with deformations of the tangent bundle and use the ring structure to derive how the deformation transforms under the biholomorphic duality of flag manifolds. Realized as the OPE ring of A/2-twisted twodimensional theories with (0,2) supersymmetry, quantum sheaf cohomology generalizes the notion of quantum cohomology. Complete descriptions of quantum sheaf cohomology have been obtained for abelian gauged linear sigma models (GLSMs) and for nonabelian GLSMs describing Grassmannians. In this paper we continue to explore the quantum sheaf cohomology of nonabelian theories. We first propose a method to compute the generating relations for (0,2) GLSMs with (2,2) locus. We apply this method to derive the quantum sheaf cohomology of products of Grassmannians and flag manifolds. The dual deformation associated with the biholomorphic duality gives rise to an explicit IR duality of two A/2-twisted (0,2) gauge theories.

This is an expanded version of the third author's lecture in String-Math 2015 at Sanya. It summarizes some of our works in quantum cohomology. After reviewing the quantum Lefschetz and quantum Leray--Hirsch, we discuss their applications to the functoriality properties under special smooth flops, flips and blow-ups. Finally, for conifold transitions of Calabi--Yau 3-folds, formulations for small resolutions (blow-ups along Weil divisors) are sketched.

We describe the closure of the strata of Abelian differentials with prescribed type of zeros and poles, in the projectivized Hodge bundle over the Deligne–Mumford moduli space of stable curves with marked points. We provide an explicit characterization of pointed stable differentials in the boundary of the closure, both a complex analytic proof and a flat geometric proof for smoothing the boundary differentials, and numerous examples. The main new ingredient in our description is a global residue condition arising from a full order on the dual graph of a stable curve.

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.