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Let N be a three dimensional Riemannian manifold. Let E be a closed embedded surface in N. Then it is a question of basic interest to see whether one can deform: in its isotopy class to some" canonical" embedded surface. From the point of view of geometry, a natural" canonical" surface will be the extremal surface of some functional defined on the space of embedded surfaces. The simplest functional is the area functional. The extremal surface of the area functional is called the minimal surface. Such minimal surfaces were used extensively by Meeks-Yau [MY21 in studying group actions on three dimensional manifolds.

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Finite Quot schemes were used by Bertram, Johnson, and the first author to study Le Potier’s strange duality conjecture on del Pezzo surfaces when one of the moduli spaces is the Hilbert scheme of points. In order to rigorously enumerate the finite Quot scheme, we study the moduli space of limit stable pairs in which the target has rank one on a smooth complex projective surface. We obtain an embedding of this moduli space into a smooth space that induces a perfect obstruction theory. This obstruction theory yields a virtual fundamental class that can be computed explicitly. Because the moduli space coincides with the Quot scheme when they have dimension 0, this makes the desired count of the finite Quot scheme in Bertram et al. rigorous. As another application, we obtain a universality result for tautological integrals on the moduli space of stable pairs.

We describe how to use the perturbation theory of Caffarelli to prove Evans-Krylov type $C^{2,\alpha}$ estimates for solutions of nonlinear elliptic equations in complex geometry, assuming a bound on the Laplacian of the solution. Our results can be used to replace the various Evans-Krylov type arguments in the complex geometry literature with a sharper and more unified approach. In addition, our methods extend to almost-complex manifolds, and we use this to obtain a new local estimate for an equation of Donaldson.