Given a smooth projective variety X and a smooth divisor D\subset X. We study relative Gromov-Witten invariants of (X,D) and the corresponding orbifold Gromov-Witten invariants of the r-th root stack X_{D,r}. For sufficiently large r, we prove that orbifold Gromov- Witten invariants of X_{D,r} are polynomials in r. Moreover, higher genus relative Gromov-Witten invariants of (X,D) are exactly the constant terms of the corresponding higher genus orbifold Gromov-Witten invari- ants of X_{D,r}. We also provide a new proof for the equality between genus zero relative and orbifold Gromov-Witten invariants, originally proved by Abramovich-Cadman-Wise. When r is sufficiently large and X=C is a curve, we prove that stationary relative invariants of C are equal to the stationary orbifold invariants in all genera.

We prove that the chordal contour lines of the discrete Gaussian free field converge to forms of SLE(4). Specifically, there is a constant λ > 0 such that when$h$is an interpolation of the discrete Gaussian free field on a Jordan domain—with boundary values −λ on one boundary arc and λ on the complementary arc—the zero level line of$h$joining the endpoints of these arcs converges to SLE(4) as the domain grows larger. If instead the boundary values are −$a$< 0 on the first arc and b > 0 on the complementary arc, then the convergence is to SLE(4;$a$/λ - 1,$b$/λ - 1), a variant of SLE(4).

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This paper presents a method of obtaining geometric registrations between high-genus (g≥1) surfaces. Surface registration between simple surfaces, such as simply connected open surfaces, has been well studied. However, very few works have been carried out for the registration of high-genus surfaces. The high-genus topology of the surface poses a great challenge for surface registration. A possible approach is to partition surfaces into simply connected patches and registration can be done in a patch-by-patch manner. Consistent cuts are required, which are usually difficult to obtain and prone to error. In this work, we propose an effective way to obtain geometric registration between high-genus surfaces without introducing consistent cuts. The key idea is to conformally parameterize the surface into its universal covering space, which is either the Euclidean plane or the hyperbolic disk embedded in R2. Registration can then be done on the universal covering space by iteratively minimizing a shape mismatching energy measuring the geometric dissimilarity between the two surfaces. The Beltrami coefficient of the mapping is considered and adjusted in order to control the bijectivity of the mappings in each iteration. Our proposed algorithm effectively computes a smooth registration between high-genus surfaces that matches geometric information as much as possible. The algorithm can also be applied to find a smooth registration minimizing any general energy functionals. Numerical experiments on high-genus surface data show that our proposed method is effective for registering high-genus surfaces with geometric matching. We also applied the method to register anatomical structures for medical imaging, which demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed algorithm.

Kurdyka–Łojasiewicz (KL) exponent plays an important role in estimating the convergence rate of many contemporary first-order methods. In particular, a KL exponent of 1/2 for a suitable potential function is related to local linear convergence. Nevertheless, KL exponent is in general extremely hard to estimate. In this paper, we show under mild assumptions that KL exponent is preserved via inf-projection. Inf-projection is a fundamental operation that is ubiquitous when reformulating optimization problems via the lift-and-project approach. By studying its operation on KL exponent, we show that the KL exponent is 1/2 for several important convex optimization models, including some semidefinite-programming-representable functions and some functions that involve C2-cone reducible structures, under conditions such as strict complementarity. Our results are applicable to concrete optimization models such as group-fused Lasso and overlapping group Lasso. In addition, for nonconvex models, we show that the KL exponent of many difference-of-convex functions can be derived from that of their natural majorant functions, and the KL exponent of the Bregman envelope of a function is the same as that of the function itself. Finally, we estimate the KL exponent of the sum of the least squares function and the indicator function of the set of matrices of rank at most k.