We review some recent developments in Chern-Simons theory on a hyperbolic 3-manifold M with complex gauge group G. We focus on the case G=SL(N,C) and with M a knot complement. The main result presented in this note is the cluster partition function, a computational tool that uses cluster algebra techniques to evaluate the Chern-Simons path integral. We also review various applications and open questions regarding the cluster partition function and some of its relation with string theory.

We consider an extended second-order cone linear complementarity problem (SOCLCP), including the generalized SOCLCP, the horizontal SOCLCP, the vertical SOCLCP, and the mixed SOCLCP as special cases. In this paper, we present some simple second-order cone constrained and unconstrained reformulation problems, and under mild conditions prove the equivalence between the stationary points of these optimization problems and the solutions of the extended SOCLCP. Particularly, we develop a proximal gradient descent method for solving the second-order cone constrained problems. This method is very simple and at each iteration makes only one Euclidean projection onto second-order cones. We establish global convergence and, under a local Lipschitzian error bound assumption, linear rate of convergence. Numerical comparisons are made with the limited-memory BFGS method for the

Based on three general guiding principles, i.e., no double occupancy constraint, accurate description of antiferromagnetism at half-filling, and the precise sign structure of the t-J model, a new ground state wave function has been constructed recently [Weng, New J. Phys. 13, 103039 (2011)]. In this paper, we specifically study such kind of variational ground state for the one-hole-doped anisotropic two-leg t-J ladder using variational Monte Carlo (VMC) method. The results are then systematically compared with those recently obtained by density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulation. An excellent agreement is found between the VMC and DMRG results, including a "quantum critical point" at the anisotropy parameter α = α_c ≈ 0.7 (with the parameters t/J=3), and the emergence of charge modulation and momentum (Fermi point) reconstruction at α > α_c due to the quantum interference of the sign structure. In particular, the wave function indicates that a Landau's quasiparticle description remains valid at α < α_c but fails at α > α_c due to the breakdown of the one-to-one correspondence of momentum and translational symmetry of the hole. The explicit form of the wave function provides a direct understanding on how the many-body strong correlation effect takes place non-perturbatively in a doped Mott insulator, which sheds interesting light on the two-dimensional case where the same type of wave function was proposed to describe the cuprate superconductor.

We study certain six dimensional theories arising on (p, q) brane webs living on R × S. These brane webs are dual to toric elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds. The compactification of the space on which the brane web lives leads to a deformation of the partition functions equivalent to the elliptic deformation of the Ding-Iohara algebra. We compute the elliptic version Dotsenko-Fateev integrals and show that they reproduce the instanton counting of the six dimensional theory.

We develop a multiscale tailored finite point method (MsTFPM) for second order elliptic equations with rough or highly oscillatory coefficients. The finite point method has been tailored to some particular properties of the problem, so that it can capture the multiscale solutions using coarse meshes without resolving the fine scale structure of the solution. Several numerical examples in one-and two-dimensions are provided to show the accuracy and convergence of the proposed method. In addition, some analysis results based on the maximum principle for the one-dimensional problem are proved.