arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Ben Wormleighton.
We develop new methods of both constructing and obstructing symplectic embeddings into non-toric rational surfaces using the theory of Newton-Okoukov bodies. Applications include sharp embedding results for concave toric domains into non-toric rational surfaces, and new cases of non-existence for infinite staircases in the non-toric setting.
The McKay correspondence has had much success in studying resolutions of 3-fold quotient singularities through a wide range of tools coming from geometry, combinatorics, and representation theory. We develop a computational perspective in this setting primarily realised through a web application to explore mutations of quivers with potential and crepant triangulations. We use this to study flops between different crepant resolutions of Gorenstein toric quotient singularities and find many situations in which the mutations of a quiver with potential classifies them. The application also implements key constructions of the McKay correspondence, including the Craw--Reid procedure and the process of associating a quiver to a toric resolution.
We study the Picard rank of smooth toric Fano varieties possessing families of minimal rational curves of given degree. We discuss variants of a conjecture of Chen-Fu-Hwang and prove a version of their statement that recovers the original conjecture in sufficiently high dimension. We also prove new cases of the original conjecture for high degrees in all dimensions. Our main tools come from toric Mori theory and the combinatorics of Fano polytopes.
We study wall-crossing phenomena in the McKay correspondence. Craw-Ishii show that every projective crepant resolution of a Gorenstein abelian quotient singularity arises as a moduli space of $θ$-stable representations of the McKay quiver. The stability condition $θ$ moves in a vector space with a chamber decomposition in which (some) wall-crossings capture flops between different crepant resolutions. We investigate where chambers for certain resolutions with Hilbert scheme-like moduli interpretations - iterated Hilbert schemes, or 'Hilb of Hilb' - sit relative to the principal chamber defining the usual $G$-Hilbert scheme. We survey relevant aspects of wall-crossing, pose our main conjecture, prove it for some examples and special cases, and discuss connections to other parts of the McKay correspondence.
We initiate the study of the rational SFT capacities of Siegel using tools in toric algebraic geometry. In particular, we derive new (often sharp) bounds for the RSFT capacities of a strongly convex toric domain in dimension $4$. These bounds admit descriptions in terms of both lattice optimization and (toric) algebraic geometry. Applications include (a) an extremely simple lattice formula for for many RSFT capacities of a large class of convex toric domains, (b) new computations of the Gromov width of a class of product symplectic manifolds and (c) an asymptotics law for the RSFT capacities of all strongly convex toric domains.
Let $(Y,A)$ be a smooth rational surface or a possibly singular toric surface with ample divisor $A$. We show that a family of ECH-based, algebro-geometric invariants $c^{\text{alg}}_k(Y,A)$ proposed by Wormleighton obstruct symplectic embeddings into $Y$. Precisely, if $(X,ω_X)$ is a $4$-dimensional star-shaped domain and $ω_Y$ is a symplectic form Poincaré dual to $[A]$ then \[(X,ω_X)\text{ embeds into }(Y,ω_Y)\text{ symplectically } \implies c^{\text{ECH}}_k(X,ω_X) \le c^{\text{alg}}_k(Y,A)\] We give three applications to toric embedding problems: (1) these obstructions are sharp for embeddings of concave toric domains into toric surfaces; (2) the Gromov width and several generalizations are monotonic with respect to inclusion of moment polygons of smooth (and many singular) toric surfaces; and (3) the Gromov width of such a toric surface is bounded by the lattice width of its moment polygon, addressing a conjecture of Averkov--Hofscheier--Nill.
ECH capacities are rich obstructions to symplectic embeddings in 4-dimensions that have also been seen to arise in the context of algebraic positivity for (possibly singular) projective surfaces. We extend this connection to relate general convex toric domains on the symplectic side with towers of polarised toric surfaces on the algebraic side, and then use this perspective to show that the sub-leading asymptotics of ECH capacities for all convex and concave toric domains are $O(1)$. We obtain sufficient criteria for when the sub-leading asymptotics converge in this context, generalising results of Hutchings and of the author, and derive new obstructions to embeddings between toric domains of the same volume. We also propose two invariants to more precisely describe when convergence occurs in the toric case. Our methods are largely non-toric in nature, and apply more widely to towers of polarised Looijenga pairs.
We study invariants coming from certain optimisation problems for nef divisors on surfaces. These optimisation problems arise in work of the author and collaborators tying obstructions to embeddings between symplectic 4-manifolds to questions of positivity for (possibly singular) algebraic surfaces. We develop the general framework for these invariants and prove foundational results on their structure and asymptotics. We describe the connections these invariants have to Embedded Contact Homology (ECH) and the Ruelle invariant in symplectic geometry, and to min-max widths in the study of minimal hypersurfaces. We use the first of these connections to obtain optimal bounds for the sub-leading asymptotics of ECH capacities for many toric domains.
The three-dimensional McKay correspondence seeks to relate the geometry of crepant resolutions of Gorenstein $3$-fold quotient singularities $\mathbb{A}^3/G$ with the representation theory of the group $G$. The first crepant resolution studied in depth was the $G$-Hilbert scheme $G\text{-Hilb}\,\mathbb{A}^3$, which is also a moduli space of $θ$-stable representations of the McKay quiver associated to $G$. As the stability parameter $θ$ varies, we obtain many other crepant resolutions. In this paper we focus on the case where $G$ is abelian, and compute explicit inequalities for the chamber of the stability space defining $G\text{-Hilb}\,\mathbb{A}^3$ in terms of a marking of exceptional subvarieties of $G\text{-Hilb}\,\mathbb{A}^3$ called Reid's recipe. We further show which of these inequalities define walls. This procedure depends only on the combinatorics of the exceptional fibre and has applications to the birational geometry of other crepant resolutions.
ECH capacities were developed by Hutchings to study embedding problems for symplectic $4$-manifolds with boundary. They have found especial success in the case of certain toric symplectic manifolds where many of the computations resemble calculations found in cohomology of $\mathbb{Q}$-line bundles on toric varieties, or in lattice point counts for rational polytopes. We formalise this observation in the case of convex toric lattice domains $X_Ω$ by constructing a natural polarised toric variety $(Y_{Σ(Ω)},D_Ω)$ containing the all the information of the ECH capacities of $X_Ω$ in purely algebro-geometric terms. Applying the Ehrhart theory of the polytopes involved in this construction gives some new results in the combinatorialisation and asymptotics of ECH capacities for convex toric domains.
The Ehrhart quasi-polynomial of a rational polytope $P$ is a fundamental invariant counting lattice points in integer dilates of $P$. The quasi-period of this quasi-polynomial divides the denominator of $P$ but is not always equal to it: this situation is called quasi-period collapse. Polytopes experiencing quasi-period collapse appear widely across algebra and geometry, and yet the phenomenon remains largely mysterious. Using techniques from algebraic geometry - specifically the $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein deformation theory of orbifold del Pezzo surfaces - we explain quasi-period collapse for rational polygons dual to Fano polygons and describe explicitly the discrepancy between the quasi-period and the denominator.
The Hilbert series of a polarised algebraic variety $(X,D)$ is a powerful invariant that, while it captures some features of the geometry of $(X,D)$ precisely, often cannot recover much information about its singular locus. This work explores the extent to which the Hilbert series of an orbifold del Pezzo surface fails to pin down its singular locus, which provides nonexistence results describing when there are no orbifold del Pezzo surfaces with a given Hilbert series, supplies bounds on the number of singularities on such surfaces, and has applications to the combinatorics of lattice polytopes in the toric case.