arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Botong Wang.
We construct irreducible complex projective varieties such that the Lyubeznik numbers of their affine cones depend on the choices of projective embeddings. The main ingredient is the recent work of Reichelt-Saito-Walther, where the Lyubeznik numbers are reinterpreted using perverse sheaves and reducible projective varieties with dependent Lyubeznik numbers are constructed.
Two well studied invariants of a complex projective variety are the unit Euclidean distance degree and the generic Euclidean distance degree. These numbers give a measure of the algebraic complexity for "nearest" point problems of the algebraic variety. It is well known that the latter is an upper bound for the former. While this bound may be tight, many varieties appearing in optimization, engineering, statistics, and data science, have a significant gap between these two numbers. We call this difference the defect of the ED degree of an algebraic variety. In this paper we compute this defect by classical techniques in Singularity Theory, thereby deriving a new method for computing ED degrees of smooth complex projective varieties.
We prove that the length function for perverse sheaves and algebraic regular holonomic D-modules on a smooth complex algebraic variety Y is an absolute Q-constructible function. One consequence is: for "any" fixed natural (derived) functor F between constructible complexes or perverse sheaves on two smooth varieties X and Y, the loci of rank one local systems L on X whose image F(L) has prescribed length are Zariski constructible subsets defined over Q, obtained from finitely many torsion-translated complex affine algebraic subtori of the moduli of rank one local systems via a finite sequence of taking union, intersection, and complement.
We survey recent developments in the study of perverse sheaves on semi-abelian varieties. As concrete applications, we discuss various obstructions on the homotopy type of complex algebraic manifolds (expressed in terms of their cohomology jump loci), homological duality properties of complex algebraic manifolds, as well as new topological characterizations of semi-abelian varieties.
We give a positive answer to a conjecture of Aluffi-Harris on the computation of the Euclidean distance degree of a possibly singular projective variety in terms of the local Euler obstruction function.
The Euclidean distance degree of an algebraic variety is a well-studied topic in applied algebra and geometry. It has direct applications in geometric modeling, computer vision, and statistics. We use non-proper Morse theory to give a topological interpretation of the Euclidean distance degree of an affine variety in terms of Euler characteristics. As a concrete application, we solve the open problem in computer vision of determining the Euclidean distance degree of the affine multiview variety.
We give two applications of the exponential Ax-Lindemann Theorem to local systems. One application is to show that for a connected topological space, the existence of a finite model of the real homotopy type implies linearity of the cohomology jump loci around the trivial local system. Another application is the linearity of the cohomology jump loci of rank one local systems on quasi-compact Kähler manifolds.
Let $G$ be a finite connected graph, and let $T$ be a spanning tree of $G$ chosen uniformly at random. The work of Kirchhoff on electrical networks can be used to show that the events $e_1 \in T$ and $e_2 \in T$ are negatively correlated for any distinct edges $e_1$ and $e_2$. What can be said for such events when the underlying matroid is not necessarily graphic? We use Hodge theory for matroids to bound the correlation between the events $e \in B$, where $B$ is a randomly chosen basis of a matroid. As an application, we prove Mason's conjecture that the number of $k$-element independent sets of a matroid forms an ultra-log-concave sequence in $k$.
We use the non-proper Morse theory of Palais-Smale to investigate the topology of smooth closed subvarieties of complex semi-abelian varieties, and that of their infinite cyclic covers. As main applications, we obtain the finite generation (except in the middle degree) of the corresponding integral Alexander modules, as well as the signed Euler characteristic property and generic vanishing for rank-one local systems on such subvarieties. Furthermore, we give a more conceptual (topological) interpretation of the signed Euler characteristic property in terms of vanishing of Novikov homology. As a byproduct, we prove a generic vanishing result for the $L^2$-Betti numbers of very affine manifolds. Our methods also recast June Huh's extension of Varchenko's conjecture to very affine manifolds, and provide a generalization of this result in the context of smooth closed subvarieties of semi-abelian varieties.
We give a numerical algorithm computing Euler obstruction functions using maximum likelihood degrees. The maximum likelihood degree is a well-studied property of a variety in algebraic statistics and computational algebraic geometry. In this article we use this degree to give a new way to compute Euler obstruction functions. We define the maximum likelihood obstruction function and show how it coincides with the Euler obstruction function. With this insight, we are able to bring new tools of computational algebraic geometry to study Euler obstruction functions.
We construct a family of $6$-dimensional compact manifolds $M(A)$, which are simultaneously diffeomorphic to complex Calabi-Yau manifolds and symplectic Calabi-Yau manifolds. They have fundamental groups $\mathbb{Z} \oplus \mathbb{Z}$, their odd-dimensional Betti numbers are even, they satisfy the hard Lefschetz property, and their real homotopy types are formal. However, $M(A) \times Y$ are not homotopy equivalent to any compact Kähler manifold for any topological space $Y$.
In this article, we give a numerical algorithm to compute braid groups of curves, hyperplane arrangements, and parameterized system of polynomial equations. Our main result is an algorithm that determines the cross-locus and the generators of the braid group.
For arbitrary field coefficients $\mathbb{K}$, we show that $\mathbb{K}$-perverse sheaves on a complex affine torus satisfy the so-called propagation package, i.e., the generic vanishing property and the signed Euler characteristic property hold, and the corresponding cohomology jump loci satisfy the propagation property and codimension lower bound. The main ingredient used in the proof is Gabber-Loeser's Mellin transformation functor for $\mathbb{K}$-constructible complexes on a complex affine torus, and the fact that it behaves well with respect to perverse sheaves. As a concrete topological application of our sheaf-theoretic results, we study homological duality properties of complex algebraic varieties, via abelian duality spaces. We provide new obstructions on abelian duality spaces by showing that their cohomology jump loci satisfy a propagation package. This is then used to prove that complex abelian varieties are the only complex projective manifolds which are abelian duality spaces. We also construct new examples of abelian duality spaces. For example, we show that if a smooth quasi-projective variety $X$ satisfies a certain Hodge-theoretic condition and it admits a proper semi-small map (e.g., a closed embedding or a finite map) to a complex affine torus, then $X$ is an abelian duality space.
We revisit generic vanishing results for perverse sheaves with any field coefficients on a complex semi-abelian variety, and indicate several topological applications. In particular, we obtain finiteness properties for the integral Alexander modules of complex algebraic varieties mapping to semi-abelian varieties. Similar results were recently derived by the authors by using Morse-theoretic arguments.
Using the theory of cohomology support locus, we give a necessary condition for the Albanese map of a smooth projective surface being a submersion. More precisely, assuming the cohomology support locus of any finite abelian cover of a smooth projective surface consists of finitely many points, we prove that the surface has trivial first Betti number, or is a ruled surface of genus one, or is an abelian surface.
The maximum likelihood degree (ML degree) measures the algebraic complexity of a fundamental optimization problem in statistics: maximum likelihood estimation. In this problem, one maximizes the likelihood function over a statistical model. The ML degree of a model is an upper bound to the number of local extrema of the likelihood function and can be expressed as a weighted sum of Euler characteristics. The independence model (i.e. rank one matrices over the probability simplex) is well known to have an ML degree of one, meaning their is a unique local maxima of the likelihood function. However, for mixtures of independence models (i.e. rank two matrices over the probability simplex), it was an open question as to how the ML degree behaved. In this paper, we use Euler characteristics to prove an outstanding conjecture by Hauenstein, the first author, and Sturmfels; we give recursions and closed form expressions for the ML degree of mixtures of independence models.
One of the earliest results in enumerative combinatorial geometry is the following theorem of de Bruijn and Erdős: Every set of points $E$ in a projective plane determines at least $|E|$ lines, unless all the points are contained in a line. Motzkin and others extended the result to higher dimensions, who showed that every set of points $E$ in a projective space determines at least $|E|$ hyperplanes, unless all the points are contained in a hyperplane. Let $E$ be a spanning subset of a $d$-dimensional vector space. We show that, in the partially ordered set of subspaces spanned by subsets of $E$, there are at least as many $(d-k)$-dimensional subspaces as there are $k$-dimensional subspaces, for every $k$ at most $d/2$. This confirms the "top-heavy" conjecture of Dowling and Wilson for all matroids realizable over some field. The proof relies on the decomposition theorem package for $\ell$-adic intersection complexes.
We prove that the cohomology jump loci of rank one local systems on the complement in a small ball of a germ of a complex analytic set are finite unions of torsion translates of subtori. This is a generalization of the classical Monodromy Theorem stating that the eigenvalues of the monodromy on the cohomology of the Milnor fiber of a germ of a holomorphic function are roots of unity.