This paper attempts to relate some ideas of Grothendieck in his Esquisse d'un programme and some of the recent results on 2-dimensional topology and geometry. Especially, we shall discuss the Teichmller theory, the mapping class groups, $ SL (2,\bold C) $ representation variety of surface groups, and Thurston's theory of measured laminations.

this article we generalize the classical gradient estimate for the minimal surface equation to higher codimension. We consider a vector-valued function $u : \Omega \subset \math{R}^n \to \math{R}^m$ that satisfies the minimal surface system, see equation (1.1) in §1. The graph of u is then a minimal submanifold of $\math{R}^{n+m}$. We prove an a priori gradient bound under the assumption that the Jacobian of $ du: \math{R}^n \to \math{R}^m$ on any two dimensional subspace of $\mtah{R}^n$ is less than or equal to one. This assumption is automatically satisfied when $du$ is of rank one and thus the estimate covers the case when m=1, i.e., the original minimal surface equation. This is applied to Bernstein type theorems for minimal submanifolds of higher codimension.

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We discuss a marginal deformation of the SL(2,R) x SU(2) x U(1)^4 WZW model, which describes string theory on AdS_3 x S^3 x T^4, that corresponds to warping the S^3 factor. This deformation breaks part of the N=(4,4) supersymmetry of the undeformed dual CFT to N=(0,4) supersymmetry. In the spirit of work by Giveon, Kutasov, and Seiberg, we construct the asymptotic spacetime symmetry algebra from worldsheet operators and find a restoration of (4,4) supersymmetry at discrete values of the deformation parameter. We explain this result from various perspectives: the worldsheet, supergravity, and from the singular D1-D5 CFT. The supergravity analysis includes an asymptotic symmetry computation of the level of the affine SU(2) R-symmetry, which arises purely from B-field contributions.

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