We investigate topological properties of Calabi-Yau four-folds and consider a wide class of explicit constructions in weighted projective spaces and, more generally, toric varieties. Divisors which lead to a non-perturbative superpotential in the effective theory have a very simple description in the toric construction. Relevant properties of them follow just by counting lattice points and can also be used to construct examples with negative Euler number. We study nets of transitions between cases with generically smooth elliptic fibres and cases with ADE gauge symmetries in the <i>N</i> = 1 theory due to degenerations of the fibre over codimension one loci in the base. Finally we investigate the quantum cohomology ring of this four-folds using Frobenius algebra.

We describe a high-resolution, real-time 3D absolute coordinate measurement system based on a phase-shifting method. It acquires 3D shape at 30 frames per second (fps), with 266K points per frame. A tiny marker is encoded in the projected fringe pattern, and detected by software from the texture image and the gamma map. Absolute 3D coordinates are obtained from the detected marker position and the calibrated system parameters. To demonstrate the performance of the system, we measure a hand moving over a depth distance of approximately 700 mm, and human faces with expressions. Applications of such a system include manufacturing, inspection, entertainment, security, medical imaging.

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.

We study a variational problem whose critical point determines the Reeb vector field for a SasakiEinstein manifold. This extends our previous work on Sasakian geometry by lifting the condition that the manifolds are toric. We show that the EinsteinHilbert action, restricted to a space of Sasakian metrics on a link <i>L</i> in a CalabiYau cone <i>X</i>, is the volume functional, which in fact is a function on the space of Reeb vector fields. We relate this function both to the DuistermaatHeckman formula and also to a limit of a certain equivariant index on <i>X</i> that counts holomorphic functions. Both formulae may be evaluated by localisation. This leads to a general formula for the volume function in terms of topological fixed point data. As a result we prove that the volume of a SasakiEinstein manifold, relative to that of the round sphere, is always an algebraic number. In complex dimension <i>n</i>=3 these results provide, via AdS

The case of dimension two was proved by Andreotti-Frankel [-7] and the case of dimension three by Mabuchi [18] using the result of Kobayashi-Ochiai [12]. Our method of proof uses harmonic maps and the characterization of the complex projective space obtained by Kobayashi-Ochiai [15]. According to the result of Kobayashi-Ochiai the complex projective space of dimension n is characterized by the fact that its first Chern class equals 2c1 (F) for some 2&gt; n+ 1 and some positive holomorphic line bundle F over it. Since by the result of Bishop-Goldberg [-2] the second Betti number of a compact Kiihler manifold M of positive bisectional curvature is 1, for the Main Theorem it suffices to show that ca (M) is 2 times a generator of H2 (M, 7Z.) for some 2&gt; 1+ dim M. This can be done by proving that a generator of the free part of H2 (M, Z) can be represented by a rational curve, because the tangent bundle of M restricted to the rational curve splits into a direct sum of holomorphic line bundles over the rational curve according to the result of Grothendieck [-11]. The existence of the rational curve is obtained in the following way. According to the result of Sacks-Uhlenbeck [22] and its improved formulation by Meeks-Yau [-19], the infimum of the energies of maps from S 2 to M representing the generator of rcz (M) can be achieved by a sum of stable harmonic maps f~ from S 2 to M (1&lt; i&lt; m). The key step in our proof is to show that each f~ is either holomorphic or conjugate holomorphic. The known methods of proving the complex-analyticity of a harmonic map use the formula for the Laplacian of the energy function [23, 25, 26] or a variation of it [24]. Here we use