arXiv subjects

Johannes Rau

Publications and source records attributed to Johannes Rau.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Welschinger--Witt invariants

Welschinger invariants are signed counts of real rational curves satisfying contraints. Quadratic Gromov--Witten invariants give such counts over general fields of characteristic different from 2 and 3. For rational del Pezzo surfaces over a field, we propose a conjectural relationship between Welschinger and quadratic Gromov--Witten invariants. We construct multivariable unramified Witt invariants, in the sense of Serre, from Welschinger invariants and call them Welschinger--Witt invariants. We show that quadratic Gromov--Witten invariants are also Witt invariants and control their ramification. We then conjecture an equality between these Witt invariants, in particular giving a conjectural computation of all the quadratic Gromov--Witten invariants of $k$-rational surfaces. We prove this conjecture for $k$-rational del Pezzo surfaces of degree at least 6.

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arXiv2024

Combinatorial patchworking: back from tropical geometry

We show that, once translated to the dual setting of convex triangulations of lattice polytopes, results and methods from previous tropical works by Arnal-Renaudineau-Shaw, Renaudineau-Shaw, Renaudineau-Rau-Shaw, and Jell-Rau-Shaw extend to non-convex triangulations. So, while the translation of Viro's patchworking method to the setting of tropical hypersurfaces has inspired several tremendous developments over the last two decades, we return to the the original polytope setting in order to generalize and simplify some results regarding the topology of $T$-submanifolds of real toric varieties.

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arXiv2023

The amoeba dimension of a linear space

Given a complex vector subspace $V$ of $\mathbb{C}^n$, the dimension of the amoeba of $V \cap (\mathbb{C}^*)^n$ depends only on the matroid that $V$ defines on the ground set $\{1,\ldots,n\}$. Here we prove that this dimension is given by the minimum of a certain function over all partitions of the ground set, as previously conjectured by Rau. We also prove that this formula can be evaluated in polynomial time.

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arXiv2023

Real phase structures on tropical manifolds and patchworks in higher codimension

This paper generalises the homeomorphism theorem behind Viro's combinatorial patchworking of hypersurfaces in toric varieties to arbitrary codimension using tropical geometry. We first define the patchwork of a polyhedral space equipped with a real phase structure. When the polyhedral subspace is tropically non-singular, we show that the patchwork is a topological manifold. When a non-singular tropical variety appears as a tropical limit of a real analytic family, we show that the real part of a fibre of the family near the tropical limit is homeomorphic to the patchwork. Finally we extend the spectral sequence introduced by the last two authors in the case of hypersurfaces to non-singular tropical varieties with real phase structures. As a corollary, we obtain bounds on the Betti numbers of the patchwork in terms of the dimensions of the tropical homology groups with coefficients modulo two.

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arXiv2023

On the tropical Lefschetz-Hopf trace formula

In this follow-up to arXiv:2007.11642, our main result is a tropical Lefschetz-Hopf trace formula for matroidal automorphisms. We show that both sides of the formula are equal to the (generalized) beta invariant of the lattice of fixed flats.

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arXiv2023

The tropical Poincaré-Hopf theorem

We express the beta invariant of a loopless matroid as tropical self-intersection number of the diagonal of its matroid fan (a "local" Poincaré-Hopf theorem). This provides another example of uncovering the "geometry" of matroids by expressing their invariants in terms of tropicalised geometric constructions. We also prove a global Poincaré-Hopf theorem and initiate the study of a more general tropical Lefschetz-Hopf trace formula by proving the two special cases of tropical curves and tropical tori.

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arXiv2023

Real semi-stable degenerations, real-oriented blow-ups and straightening corners

We study totally real semi-stable degenerations (and more generally, smooth semi-stable degenerations). Our goal is to describe the homeomorphism type of the real locus $\mathbf{R} X_t$ of the general fibre in terms of the special fibre. We give a general homeomorphism statement via the real-oriented blow-up of the family. Using this, we give more explicit descriptions of $\mathbf{R} X_t$ as a stratified space glued from (covers of) strata of the special fibre. We also give relative versions of the statements and consider the example of toric degenerations in order to link the technique to tropicalisation.

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arXiv2023

Real phase structures on matroid fans and matroid orientations

We introduce the notion of real phase structure on rational polyhedral fans in Euclidean space. Such a structure consists of an assignment of affine spaces over $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ to each top dimensional face of the fan subject to two conditions. Given an oriented matroid we can construct a real phase structure on the fan of the underlying matroid. Conversely, we show that from a real phase structure on a matroid fan we can produce an orientation of the underlying matroid. Thus real phase structures are cryptomorphic to matroid orientations. The topes of the orientated matroid are recovered immediately from the real phase structure. We also provide a direct way to recover the signed circuits of the oriented matroid from the real phase structure.

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arXiv2021

Spines for amoebas of rational curves

To every rational complex curve $C \subset (\mathbf{C}^\times)^n$ we associate a rational tropical curve $Γ\subset \mathbf{R}^n$ so that the amoeba $\mathcal{A}(C) \subset \mathbf{R}^n$ of $C$ is within a bounded distance from $Γ$. In accordance with the terminology introduced by Passare and Rullgård, we call $Γ$ the spine of $\mathcal{A}(C)$. We use spines to describe tropical limits of sequences of rational complex curves.

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arXiv2019

Signed counts of real simple rational functions

We study the problem of counting real simple rational functions $φ$ with prescribed ramification data (i.e. a particular class of oriented real Hurwitz numbers of genus $0$). We introduce a signed count of such functions that is invariant under change of the branch locus, thus providing a lower bound for the actual count (which does depend on such change). We prove (non-)vanishing theorems for these signed counts and study their asymptotic growth when adding further simple branch points. The approach is based on the works of Itenberg and Zvonkine (arXiv:1609.05219) which treat the polynomial case.

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arXiv2019

The dimension of an amoeba

Answering a question by Nisse and Sottile, we derive a formula for the dimension of the amoeba of an irreducible algebraic variety.

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arXiv2019

Lefschetz (1,1)-theorem in tropical geometry

For a tropical manifold of dimension n we show that the tropical homology classes of degree (n-1, n-1) which arise as fundamental classes of tropical cycles are precisely those in the kernel of the eigenwave map. To prove this we establish a tropical version of the Lefschetz (1, 1)-theorem for rational polyhedral spaces that relates tropical line bundles to the kernel of the wave homomorphism on cohomology. Our result for tropical manifolds then follows by combining this with Poincaré duality for integral tropical homology.

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arXiv2018

Lower bounds and asymptotics of real double Hurwitz numbers

We study the real counterpart of double Hurwitz numbers, called real double Hurwitz numbers here. We establish a lower bound for these numbers with respect to their dependence on the distribution of branch points. We use it to prove, under certain conditions, existence of real Hurwitz covers as well as logarithmic equivalence of real and classical Hurwitz numbers. The lower bound is based on the \enquote{tropical} computation of real Hurwitz numbers in arXiv:1412.4235.

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arXiv2016

Rational quintics in the real plane

From a topological viewpoint, a rational curve in the real projective plane is generically a smoothly immersed circle and a finite collection of isolated points. We give an isotopy classification of generic rational quintics in $\mathbb{RP}^2$ in the spirit of Hilbert's 16th problem.

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arXiv2015

Tropical Real Hurwitz numbers

In this paper, we define tropical analogues of real Hurwitz numbers, i.e. numbers of covers of surfaces with compatible involutions satisfying prescribed ramification properties. We prove a correspondence theorem stating the equality of the tropical numbers with their real counterparts. We apply this theorem to the case of double Hurwitz numbers (which generalizes our result from arXiv:1409.8095).

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arXiv2015

The combinatorics of real double Hurwitz numbers with real positive branch points

We investigate the combinatorics of real double Hurwitz numbers with real positive branch points using the symmetric group. Our main focus is twofold. First, we prove correspondence theorems relating these numbers to counts of tropical real covers and study the structure of real double Hurwitz numbers with the help of the tropical count. Second, we express the numbers as counts of paths in a subgraph of the Cayley graph of the symmetric group. By restricting to real double Hurwitz numbers with real positive branch points, we obtain a concise translation of the counting problem in terms of tuples of elements of the symmetric group that enables us to uncover the beautiful combinatorics of these numbers both in tropical geometry and in the Cayley graph.

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arXiv2015

On rational equivalence in tropical geometry

This article discusses the concept of rational equivalence in tropical geometry (and replaces the older and imperfect version arXiv:0811.2860). We give the basic definitions in the context of tropical varieties without boundary points and prove some basic properties. We then compute the "bounded" Chow groups of $\mathbb{R}^n$ by showing that they are isomorphic to the group of fan cycles. The main step in the proof is of independent interest: We show that every tropical cycle in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is a sum of (translated) fan cycles. This also proves that the intersection ring of tropical cycles is generated in codimension 1 (by hypersurfaces).

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arXiv2015

Intersections on tropical moduli spaces

This article explores to which extent the algebro-geometric theory of rational descendant Gromov-Witten invariants can be carried over to the tropical world. Despite the fact that the tropical moduli-spaces we work with are non-compact, the answer is surprisingly positive. We discuss the string, divisor and dilaton equations, we prove a splitting lemma describing the intersection with a "boundary" divisor and we prove general tropical versions of the WDVV resp. topological recursion equations (under some assumptions). As a direct application, we prove that the toric varieties $\mathbb{P}^1$, $\mathbb{P}^2$, $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$ and with Psi-conditions only in combination with point conditions, the tropical and classical descendant Gromov-Witten invariants coincide (which extends the result for $\mathbb{P}^2$ in Markwig-Rau-2008). Our approach uses tropical intersection theory and can unify and simplify some parts of the existing tropical enumerative geometry (for rational curves).

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