arXiv subjects

Jonathan David Evans

Publications and source records attributed to Jonathan David Evans.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Weighted Seshadri constants and ellipsoid embeddings

We explore Seshadri constants associated to weighted blow-ups of complex projective varieties and demonstrate how to use this notion to construct symplectic embeddings of ellipsoids. We illustrate the utility of this point of view by providing constructions of full fillings of $\mathbb{CP}^2$ by ellipsoids corresponding to all of the exceptional (post-Fibonacci) steps of the McDuff--Schlenk staircase and some non-obvious embeddings of ellipsoids in ellipsoids.

math.SG↗

arXiv2025

Euler's explorations of extremal ellipses

In the 1770s, Euler wrote a series of papers (E563, E691 and E692) about finding the ellipse with minimal area or perimeter in the family of all ellipses passing through a fixed set of points. This is a translation of all three papers from the original Latin, together with a commentary which discusses Euler's results and an appendix which addresses a question from E691 which Euler left for others to consider.

math.HO↗

arXiv2025

Noncommutative crepant resolutions of $cA_n$ singularities via Fukaya categories

We compute the wrapped Fukaya category $\mathcal{W}(T^*S^1, D)$ of a cylinder relative to a divisor $D= \{p_1,\ldots, p_n\}$ of $n$ points, proving a mirror equivalence with the category of perfect complexes on a crepant resolution (over $k[t_0,\ldots, t_n]$) of the singularity $uv=t_0t_1\ldots t_n$. Upon making the base-change $t_i= f_i(x,y)$, we obtain the derived category of any crepant resolution of the $cA_{n}$ singularity given by the equation $uv= f_0\ldots f_n$. These categories inherit braid group actions via the action on $\mathcal{W}(T^*S^1,D)$ of the mapping class group of $T^*S^1$ fixing $D$. We also give a geometric model of the derived contraction algebra of a $cA_n$ singularity in terms of the relative Fukaya category of the disc.

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arXiv2024

Lagrangian Surplusection Phenomena

Suppose you have a family of Lagrangian submanifolds $L_t$ and an auxiliary Lagrangian $K$. Suppose that $K$ intersects some of the $L_t$ more than the minimal number of times. Can you eliminate surplus intersection (surplusection) with all fibres by performing a Hamiltonian isotopy of $K$? Or will any Lagrangian isotopic to $K$ surplusect some of the fibres? We argue that in several important situations, surplusection cannot be eliminated, and that a better understanding of surplusection phenomena (better bounds and a clearer understanding of how the surplusection is distributed in the family) would help to tackle some outstanding problems in different areas, including Oh's conjecture on the volume-minimising property of the Clifford torus and the concurrent normals conjecture in convex geometry. We pose many open questions.

math.SG↗

arXiv2024

Lagrangian Klein bottles in $S^2 \times S^2$

We use Luttinger surgery to show that there are no Lagrangian Klein bottles in $S^2\times S^2$ in the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-homology class of an $S^2$-factor if the symplectic area of that factor is at least twice that of the other.

math.SG↗

arXiv2024

On Amicable Numbers

This is an English translation of Euler's 1750 paper "De numeris amicabilibus" (E152), the most substantial of his three works with this name. In it, he expounds at great length the ad hoc methods he has developed to search for pairs of amicable numbers, concluding with a list of around 60 new pairs.

math.HO↗

arXiv2024

Unlinking and unknottedness of monotone Lagrangian submanifolds

Under certain topological assumptions, we show that two monotone Lagrangian submanifolds embedded in the standard symplectic vector space with the same monotonicity constant cannot link one another and that, individually, their smooth knot type is determined entirely by the homotopy theoretic data which classifies the underlying Lagrangian immersion. The topological assumptions are satisfied by a large class of manifolds which are realised as monotone Lagrangians, including tori. After some additional homotopy theoretic calculations, we deduce that all monotone Lagrangian tori in the symplectic vector space of odd complex dimension at least five are smoothly isotopic.

math.SG↗

arXiv2024

Quantum cohomology of twistor spaces and their Lagrangian submanifolds

We compute the classical and quantum cohomology rings of the twistor spaces of 6-dimensional hyperbolic manifolds and the eigenvalues of quantum multiplication by the first Chern class. Given a half-dimensional totally geodesic submanifold we associate, after Reznikov, a monotone Lagrangian submanifold of the twistor space. In the case of a 3-dimensional totally geodesic submanifold of a hyperbolic 6-manifold we compute the obstruction term $m_0$ in the Fukaya-Floer $A_{\infty}$-algebra of a Reznikov Lagrangian and calculate the Lagrangian quantum homology. There is a well-known correspondence between the possible values of $m_0$ for a Lagrangian with nonvanishing Lagrangian quantum homology and eigenvalues for the action of $c_1$ on quantum cohomology by quantum cup product. Reznikov's Lagrangians account for most of these eigenvalues but there are four exotic eigenvalues we cannot account for.

math.SG↗

arXiv2024

Tropical methods for stable octic double planes

This paper has been written to illustrate the power of techniques from tropical geometry and mirror symmetry for studying the KSBA moduli space of surfaces on or near the Noether line. We focus on the moduli space of octic double planes ($K^2 = 2$, $p_g = 3$) and use methods from tropical and toric geometry to classify the strata corresponding to normal KSBA-stable surfaces, focusing on the non-Gorenstein case.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

KIAS Lectures on Symplectic Aspects of Degenerations

This is a series of three lectures I gave at the Korea Institute of Advanced Study in June 2019 at a workshop about "Algebraic and Symplectic Aspects of Degenerations of Complex Surfaces". I focus on the symplectic aspects, in particular on the case of cyclic quotient surface singularities. These notes have been available on a public Git repository since 2019, and I noticed that people occasionally cited them in the years since. For that reason, I decided to post them on arXiv for a more permanent record; I have made some small corrections and annotations but otherwise they are unchanged. These notes are a purely expository account of stuff I was thinking about 2016-2019, and are largely self-aggrandising.

math.SG↗

arXiv2022

Lectures on Lagrangian torus fibrations

This is a book aimed at graduate students and researchers in symplectic geometry, based on a course I taught in 2019. The primary message is that the base of a Lagrangian torus fibration inherits an integral affine structure, which you can use to "read off" a lot of interesting geometry of the total space. Topics covered include: action-angle coordinates, symplectic reduction, toric manifolds, visible and tropical Lagrangians, almost toric systems, Milnor fibres of cyclic quotient singularities, mutation of polygons, non-toric blow-up, an almost toric view on Lisca's classification of fillings of lens spaces, resolutions of cusp singularities, Markov triples and Vianna tori. The book ends with a short list of open problems. Throughout there is an emphasis on examples and there are some exercises with solutions.

math.SG↗

arXiv2022

Symplectic cohomology of compound Du Val singularities

We compute symplectic cohomology for Milnor fibres of certain compound Du Val singularities that admit small resolution by using homological mirror symmetry. Our computations suggest a new conjecture that the existence of a small resolution has strong implications for the symplectic cohomology and conversely. We also use our computations to give a contact invariant of the link of the singularities and thereby distinguish many contact structures on connected sums of $S^2 \times S^3$.

math.SG↗

arXiv2022

A Lagrangian Klein bottle you can't squeeze

Suppose you have a nonorientable Lagrangian surface L in a symplectic 4-manifold. How far can you deform the symplectic form before the smooth isotopy class of L contains no Lagrangians? I solve this question for a particular Lagrangian Klein bottle. I also discuss some related conjectures.

math.SG↗

arXiv2020

Constructing local models for Lagrangian torus fibrations

We give a construction of Lagrangian torus fibrations with controlled discriminant locus on certain affine varieties. In particular, we apply our construction in the following ways. We find a Lagrangian torus fibration on the 3-fold negative vertex whose discriminant locus has codimension 2; this provides a local model for finding torus fibrations on compact Calabi-Yau 3-folds with codimension 2 discriminant locus. Then, we find a Lagrangian torus fibration on a neighbourhood of the one-dimensional stratum of a simple normal crossing divisor (satisfying certain conditions) such that the base of the fibration is an open subset of the cone over the dual complex of the divisor. This can be used to construct an analogue of the non-archimedean SYZ fibration constructed by Nicaise, Xu and Yu.

math.SG↗

arXiv2020

Antiflips, mutations, and unbounded symplectic embeddings of rational homology balls

The Milnor fibre of a $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein smoothing of a Wahl singularity is a rational homology ball $B_{p,q}$. For a canonically polarised surface of general type $X$, it is known that there are bounds on the number $p$ for which $B_{p,q}$ admits a symplectic embedding into $X$. In this paper, we give a recipe to construct unbounded sequences of symplectically embedded $B_{p,q}$ into surfaces of general type equipped with non-canonical symplectic forms. Ultimately, these symplectic embeddings come from Mori's theory of flips, but we give an interpretation in terms of almost toric structures and mutations of polygons. The key point is that a flip of surfaces, as studied by Hacking, Tevelev and Urzúa, can be formulated as a combination of mutations of an almost toric structure and deformation of the symplectic form.

math.SG↗

arXiv2019

Remarks on monotone Lagrangians in $\mathbf{C}^n$

We derive some restrictions on the topology of a monotone Lagrangian submanifold $L\subset\mathbf{C}^n$ by making observations about the topology of the moduli space of Maslov 2 holomorphic discs with boundary on $L$ and then using Damian's theorem which gives conditions under which the evaluation map from this moduli space to $L$ has nonzero degree. In particular we prove that an orientable 3-manifold admits a monotone Lagrangian embedding in $\mathbf{C}^3$ only if it is a product, which is a variation on a theorem of Fukaya. Finally we prove an h-principle for monotone Lagrangian immersions.

math.SG↗

arXiv2019

Bounds on Wahl singularities from symplectic topology

Let X be a minimal surface of general type with positive geometric genus ($b_+ > 1$) and let $K^2$ be the square of its canonical class. Building on work of Khodorovskiy and Rana, we prove that if X develops a Wahl singularity of length $\ell$ in a Q-Gorenstein degeneration, then $\ell \leq 4K^2 + 7$. This improves on the current best-known upper bound due to Lee ($\ell \leq 400(K^2)^4$). Our bound follows from a stronger theorem constraining symplectic embeddings of certain rational homology balls in surfaces of general type. In particular, we show that if the rational homology ball $B_{p,1}$ embeds symplectically in a quintic surface, then $p \leq 12$, partially answering the symplectic version of a question of Kronheimer.

math.AG↗

arXiv2018

Generating the Fukaya categories of Hamiltonian G-manifolds

Let $G$ be a compact Lie group and $\mathbf{k}$ be a field of characteristic $p \geq 0$ such that $H^* (G)$ does not have $p$-torsion. We show that a free Lagrangian orbit of a Hamiltonian $G$-action on a compact, monotone, symplectic manifold $X$ split-generates an idempotent summand of the monotone Fukaya category $\mathcal{F}(X; \mathbf{k})$ if and only if it represents a non-zero object of that summand (slightly more general results are also provided). Our result is based on: an explicit understanding of the wrapped Fukaya category $\mathcal{W}(T^*G; \mathbf{k})$ through Koszul twisted complexes involving the zero-section and a cotangent fibre; and a functor $D^b \mathcal{W}(T^*G; \mathbf{k}) \to D^b\mathcal{F}(X^{-} \times X; \mathbf{k})$ canonically associated to the Hamiltonian $G$-action on $X$. We explore several examples which can be studied in a uniform manner including toric Fano varieties and certain Grassmannians.

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