A bstract M5 branes probing D-type singularities give rise to 6d (1, 0) SCFTs with SO SO flavor symmetry known as D-type conformal matter theories. Gauging the diagonal SO-flavor symmetry leads to a little string theory with an intrinsic scale which can be engineered in F-theory by compactifying on a doubly-elliptic Calabi-Yau manifold. We derive Seiberg-Witten curves for these little string theories which can be interpreted as mirror curves for the corresponding Calabi-Yau manifolds. Under fiber-base duality these models are mapped to D-type quiver gauge theories and we check that their Seiberg-Witten curves match. By taking decompactification limits, we construct the curves for the related 6d SCFTs and connect to known results in the literature by further taking 5d and 4d limits.

In 1976, the author (see the open problem section in [3]) asked the following question: if p is a function defined on i? 3, what is the condition on p so that there is a sphere in R3 whose mean curvature is given by p. There were important works by Treibergs-Wei [2] and others on this question. Recently in a lecture that I gave in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I realized that my work with R. Schoen on the existence of black hole can be used to settle the prescribed mean curvature question for a large class of p.

We discuss a method for deriving differential equations for the prepotential and the mirror map arising from a pair of Calabi-Yau manifold. Examples with one Kahler modulus are given. Here we nd that the differential equations we derive almost entirely characterize the prepotential and the mirror map in question. Some of the results here have been announced previously in

In [LL-Y1, III: Sec. 5.4] on mirror principle, a method was developed to compute the integral \int_ {X} ^{st} e^{H\cdot t}\cap {\mathbf 1} _d for a flag manifold $ X=\Fl_ {r_1,..., r_I}({\Bbb C}^ n) $ via an extended mirror principle diagram. This method turns the required localization computation on the augmented moduli stack $\bar {\cal M} _ {0, 0}(\CP^ 1\times X) $ of stable maps to a localization computation on a hyper-Quot-scheme $\HQuot ({\cal E}^ n) $. In this article, the detail of this localization computation on $\HQuot ({\cal E}^ n) $ is carried out. The necessary ingredients in the computation, notably, the \int_ {X} ^{st} e^{H\cdot t}\cap {\mathbf 1} _d -fixed-point components and the distinguished ones \int_ {X} ^{st} e^{H\cdot t}\cap {\mathbf 1} _d in $\HQuot ({\cal E}^ n) $, the \int_ {X} ^{st} e^{H\cdot t}\cap {\mathbf 1} _d -equivariant Euler class of \int_ {X} ^{st} e^{H\cdot t}\cap {\mathbf 1} _d in $\HQuot ({\cal E}^ n) $, and a push-forward formula of cohomology classes involved in the problem from the total space of a restrictive flag manifold bundle to its base manifold are given. With these, an exact expression of \int_ {X} ^{st} e^{H\cdot t}\cap {\mathbf 1} _d is obtained. Comments on the Hori-Vafa conjecture are given in the end.

We propose a method to map a multiply connected bounded planar region conformally to a bounded region with circular boundaries. The norm of the derivative of such a conformal map satisfies the Laplace equation with a nonlinear Neumann type boundary condition. We analyze the singular behavior at corners of the boundary and separate the major singular part. The remaining smooth part solves a variational problem which is easy to discretize. We use a finite element method and a gradient descent method to find an approximate solution. The conformal map is then constructed from this norm function. We tested our algorithm on a polygonal region and a curvilinear smooth region.