Let X be an equivariant embedding of a connected reductive group X over an algebraically closed field X of positive characteristic. Let X denote a Borel subgroup of X . A X -Schubert variety in X is a subvariety of the form $\diag (G)\cdot V $, where X is a X -orbit closure in X . In the case where X is the wonderful compactification of a group of adjoint type, the X -Schubert varieties are the closures of Lusztig's X -stable pieces. We prove that X admits a Frobenius splitting which is compatible with all X -Schubert varieties. Moreover, when X is smooth, projective and toroidal, then any X -Schubert variety in X admits a stable Frobenius splitting along an ample divisors. Although this indicates that X -Schubert varieties have nice singularities we present an example of a non-normal X -Schubert variety in the wonderful compactification of a group of type X . Finally we also extend the Frobenius splitting results to the more general class of X -Schubert varieties.

We give a short proof of Penner-Grushevsky-Schumacher-Trapanis large genus asymptotics of Weil-Petersson volumes of moduli spaces of curves. We also study asymptotic expansions for certain integrals of pure \psi classes and answer a question of Mirzakhani on the asymptotic behavior of one-point volume polynomials of moduli spaces of curves.

This is the second of a sequence of papers proving the quantum invariance for ordinary flops over an arbitrary smooth base. In this paper, we complete the proof of the invariance of the big quantum rings under ordinary flops of splitting type. To achieve that, several new ingredients are introduced. One is a quantum Leray--Hirsch theorem for the local model (a certain toric bundle) which extends the quantum D module of Dubrovin connection on the base by a Picard--Fuchs system of the toric fibers. Nonsplit flops as well as further applications of the quantum Leray--Hirsch theorem will be discussed in subsequent papers. In particular, a quantum splitting principle is developed in Part III which reduces the general ordinary flops to the split case solved here.

For projective conifold transitions between Calabi-Yau threefolds X and Y, with X close to Y in the moduli, we show that the combined information provided by the A model (Gromov--Witten theory in all genera) and B model (variation of Hodge structures) on X, linked along the vanishing cycles, determines the corresponding combined information on Y. Similar result holds in the reverse direction when linked with the exceptional curves.

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