We study special cycles on integral models of Shimura varieties associated with unitary similitude groups of signature (n.1, 1).We construct an arithmetic theta lift from harmonic Maass forms of weight 2 . n to the arithmetic Chow group of the integral model of a unitary Shimura variety, by associating to a harmonic Maass form f a linear combination of Kudla– Rapoport divisors, equipped with the Green function given by the regularized theta lift of f . Our main result is an equality of two complex numbers: (1) the height pairing of the arithmetic theta lift of f against a CM cycle, and (2) the central derivative of the convolution L-function of a weight n cusp form (depending on f ) and the theta function of a positive definite hermitian lattice of rank n − 1. When specialized to the case n = 2, this result can be viewed as a variant of the Gross–Zagier formula for Shimura curves associated to unitary groups of signature (1, 1). The proof relies on, among other things, a new method for computing improper arithmetic intersections.

We introduce symplectic Calabi–Yau caps to obtain new obstructions to exact fillings. In particular, they imply that any exact filling of the standard contact structure on the unit cotangent bundle of a hyperbolic surface has vanishing first Chern class and has the same integral homology and intersection form as its disk cotangent bundle. This gives evidence to a conjecture that all of its exact fillings are diffeomorphic to the disk cotangent bundle. As a result, we also obtain the first infinite family of Stein fillable contact 3-manifolds with uniform bounds on the Betti numbers of its exact fillings but admitting minimal strong fillings of arbitrarily large b2. Moreover, we introduce the notion of symplectic uniruled/adjunction caps and uniruled/ adjunction contact structures to present a unified picture to the existing finiteness results on the topological invariants of exact/strong fillings of a contact 3-manifold. As a byproduct, we find new classes of contact 3-manifolds with the finiteness properties and extend Wand’s obstruction of planar contact 3-manifolds to uniruled/adjunction contact structures with complexity zero.

Given a Lagrangian sphere in a symplectic 4–manifold $(M, \omega)$ with $b^{+}=1$, we find embedded symplectic surfaces intersecting it minimally. When the Kodaira dimension  $\kappa$ of $(M,\omega)$ is $-\infty$, this minimal intersection property turns out to be very powerful for both the uniqueness and existence problems of Lagrangian spheres. On the uniqueness side, for a symplectic rational manifold and any class which is not characteristic, we show that homologous Lagrangian spheres are smoothly isotopic, and when the Euler number is less than 8, we generalize Hind and Evans’ Hamiltonian uniqueness in the monotone case. On the existence side, when  $\kappa=-\infty$, we give a characterization of classes represented by Lagrangian spheres, which enables us to describe the non-Torelli part of the symplectic mapping class group.

We study Nakai-Moishezon type question and Donaldson’s “tamed to compatible” question for almost complex structures on rational four manifolds. By extending Taubes’ subvarieties-currentform technique to J-nef genus 0 classes, we give affirmative answers of these two questions for all tamed almost complex structures on S^2 bundles over S^2 as well as for many geometrically interesting tamed almost complex structures on other rational four manifolds, including the del Pezzo ones.

We present a 3D topological picture-language for quantum information. Our approach combines charged excitations carried by strings, with topological properties that arise from embedding the strings in the interior of a 3D manifold with boundary. A quon is a composite that acts as a particle. Specifically, a quon is a hemisphere containing a neutral pair of open strings with opposite charge. We interpret multiquons and their transformations in a natural way. We obtain a type of relation, a string–genus “joint relation,” involving both a string and the 3D manifold. We use the joint relation to obtain a topological interpretation of the C* Hopf algebra relations, which are widely used in tensor networks. We obtain a 3D representation of the controlled NOT (CNOT) gate that is considerably simpler than earlier work, and a 3D topological protocol for teleportation.