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Madeline Brandt

Publications and source records attributed to Madeline Brandt.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Level structures on tropical abelian varieties

We introduce level structures on tropical abelian varieties and give a modular interpretation of $A_g[m]^{\mathrm{trop}}$, the tropicalization of the moduli space $\mathcal{A}_g[m]$ of principally polarized abelian varieties with level $m$ structure. We study the case of abelian surfaces in greater depth. The link of $A_2[m]^{\mathrm{trop}}$ is an explicit simplicial complex whose vertices are the primitive vectors of $(\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z})^4$ up to sign. As a topological space, this link is homotopic to a wedge sum of closed orientable surfaces and circles; we compute the number of each of these and the genera of the surfaces. We deduce the weight zero compactly supported rational cohomology of $\mathcal{A}_2[m]$, completing a calculation of Oda-Schwermer from 1990.

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arXiv2026

Tropicalizations of locally symmetric varieties

This paper provides a rigorous study of tropicalizations of locally symmetric varieties. We give applications beyond tropical geometry, to the cohomology of moduli spaces as well as to the cohomology of arithmetic groups. We study two cases in detail: the special unitary case, and the case of level structures on the moduli space $\mathcal{A}_g$ of abelian varieties.

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arXiv2026

The virtual Euler characteristic for binary matroids

Inspired by Kontsevich's graphic orbifold Euler characteristic we define a virtual Euler characteristic for any finite set of isomorphism classes of matroids of rank $r$. Our main result provides a simple formula for the virtual Euler characteristic for the set of isomorphism classes of matroids of rank $r$ realizable over $\mathbb{F}_2$ (i.e., binary matroids). We prove this formula by relating the virtual Euler characteristic for binary matroids to the point counts of certain subsets of Grassmanians over finite fields. We conclude by providing several follow-up questions in relation to matroids realizable over other finite prime fields, matroid homology, and beta invariants.

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arXiv2024

On the weight zero compactly supported cohomology of $\mathcal{H}_{g, n}$

For $g\ge 2$ and $n\ge 0$, let $\mathcal{H}_{g,n}\subset \mathcal{M}_{g,n}$ denote the complex moduli stack of $n$-marked smooth hyperelliptic curves of genus $g$. A normal crossings compactification of this space is provided by the theory of pointed admissible $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$-covers. We explicitly determine the resulting dual complex, and we use this to define a graph complex which computes the weight zero compactly supported cohomology of $\mathcal{H}_{g, n}$. Using this graph complex, we give a sum-over-graphs formula for the $S_n$-equivariant weight zero compactly supported Euler characteristic of $\mathcal{H}_{g, n}$. This formula allows for the computer-aided calculation, for each $g\le 7$, of the generating function $\mathsf{h}_g$ for these equivariant Euler characteristics for all $n$. More generally, we determine the dual complex of the boundary in any moduli space of pointed admissible $G$-covers of genus zero curves, when $G$ is abelian, as a symmetric $Δ$-complex. We use these complexes to generalize our formula for $\mathsf{h}_g$ to moduli spaces of $n$-pointed smooth abelian covers of genus zero curves.

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arXiv2023

Voronoi Cells in Metric Algebraic Geometry of Plane Curves

Voronoi cells of varieties encode many features of their metric geometry. We prove that each Voronoi or Delaunay cell of a plane curve appears as the limit of a sequence of cells obtained from point samples of the curve. We use this result to study metric features of plane curves, including the medial axis, curvature, evolute, bottlenecks, and reach. In each case, we provide algebraic equations defining the object and, where possible, give formulas for the degrees of these algebraic varieties. We show how to identify the desired metric feature from Voronoi or Delaunay cells, and therefore how to approximate it by a finite point sample from the variety.

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arXiv2022

Towards tropically counting binodal surfaces

Tropical counting tools are useful for many enumerative questions. We count tropical multinodal surfaces using floor plans, looking at the case when two nodes are tropically close together, i.e., unseparated. We generalize tropical floor plans to recover the count of multinodal curves. We then prove that for $δ=2$ or $3$ nodes, tropical surfaces with unseparated nodes contribute asymptotically to the second order term of the polynomial giving the degree of the family of complex projective surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^3$ of degree $d$ with $δ$ nodes. We classify when two nodes in a surface tropicalize to a vertex dual to a polytope with 6 lattice points, and prove that this only happens for projective degree $d$ surfaces satisfying point conditions in Mikhalkin position when $d>4$.

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arXiv2022

On the Top-Weight Rational Cohomology of $A_g$

We compute the top-weight rational cohomology of $A_g$ for $g=5$, $6$, and $7$, and we give some vanishing results for the top-weight rational cohomology of $A_8, A_9,$ and $ A_{10}$. When $g=5$ and $g=7$, we exhibit nonzero cohomology groups of $A_g$ in odd degree, thus answering a question highlighted by Grushevsky. Our methods develop the relationship between the top-weight cohomology of $A_g$ and the homology of the link of the moduli space of principally polarized tropical abelian varieties of rank $g$. To compute the latter we use the Voronoi complexes used by Elbaz-Vincent-Gangl-Soulé. Our computations give natural candidates for compactly supported cohomology classes of $A_g$ in weight $0$ that produce the stable cohomology classes of the Satake compactification of $A_g$ in weight $0$, under the Gysin spectral sequence for the latter space.

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arXiv2021

Symmetric powers of algebraic and tropical curves: a non-Archimedean perspective

We show that the non-Archimedean skeleton of the $d$-th symmetric power of a smooth projective algebraic curve $X$ is naturally isomorphic to the $d$-th symmetric power of the tropical curve that arises as the non-Archimedean skeleton of $X$. The retraction to the skeleton is precisely the specialization map for divisors. Moreover, we show that the process of tropicalization naturally commutes with the diagonal morphisms and the Abel-Jacobi map and we exhibit a faithful tropicalization for symmetric powers of curves. Finally, we prove a version of the Bieri-Groves Theorem that allows us, under certain tropical genericity assumptions, to deduce a new tropical Riemann-Roch-Theorem for the tropicalization of linear systems.

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arXiv2021

Tropical flag varieties

Flag matroids are combinatorial abstractions of flags of linear subspaces, just as matroids are of linear subspaces. We introduce the flag Dressian as a tropical analogue of the partial flag variety, and prove a correspondence between: (a) points on the flag Dressian, (b) valuated flag matroids, (c) flags of projective tropical linear spaces, and (d) coherent flag matroidal subdivisions. We introduce and characterize projective tropical linear spaces, which serve as a fundamental tool in our proof. We apply the correspondence to prove that all valuated flag matroids on ground set up to size 5 are realizable, and give an example where this fails for a flag matroid on 6 elements.

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arXiv2020

Tropical superelliptic curves

We present an algorithm for computing the Berkovich skeleton of a superelliptic curve $y^n=f(x)$ over a valued field. After defining superelliptic weighted metric graphs, we show that each one is realizable by an algebraic superelliptic curve when $n$ is prime. Lastly, we study the locus of superelliptic weighted metric graphs inside the moduli space of tropical curves of genus $g$.

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arXiv2020

Matroids and their Dressians

We study Dressians of matroids using the initial matroids of Dress and Wenzel. These correspond to cells in regular matroid subdivisions of matroid polytopes. An efficient algorithm for computing Dressians is presented, and its implementation is applied to a range of interesting matroids. We give counterexamples to a few plausible statements about matroid subdivisions.

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arXiv2019

A Tropical Count of Binodal Cubic Surfaces

There are 280 binodal cubic surfaces passing through 17 general points. For the typically used tropical point conditions, we show that 214 of these give tropicalizations such that the nodes are separated on the tropical cubic surface.

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arXiv2019

Divisorial motivic zeta functions for marked stable curves

We define a divisorial motivic zeta function for stable curves with marked points which agrees with Kapranov's motivic zeta function when the curve is smooth and unmarked. We show that this zeta function is rational, and give a formula in terms of the dual graph of the curve.

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arXiv2019

Optimal Packings of Two to Four Equal Circles on Any Flat Torus

We find explicit formulas for the radii and locations of the circles in all the optimally dense packings of two, three or four equal circles on any flat torus, defined to be the quotient of the Euclidean plane by the lattice generated by two independent vectors. We prove the optimality of the arrangements using techniques from rigidity theory and topological graph theory.

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arXiv2018

The slack realization space of a matroid

We introduce a new model for the realization space of a matroid, which is obtained from a variety defined by a saturated determinantal ideal, called the slack ideal, coming from the vertex-hyperplane incidence matrix of the matroid. This is inspired by a similar model for the slack realization space of a polytope. We show how to use these ideas to certify non-realizability of matroids, and describe an explicit relationship to the standard Grassmann-Plücker realization space model. We also exhibit a way of detecting projectively unique matroids via their slack ideals by introducing a toric ideal that can be associated to any matroid.

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arXiv2017

The degree of $\text{SO}(n)$

We provide a closed formula for the degree of $\text{SO}(n)$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. In addition, we describe symbolic and numerical techniques which can also be used to compute the degree of $\text{SO}(n)$ for small values of $n$. As an application of our results, we give a formula for the number of critical points of a low-rank semidefinite programming optimization problem. Finally, we provide some evidence for a conjecture regarding the real locus of $\text{SO}(n)$.

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arXiv2017

From Curves to Tropical Jacobians and Back

Given a curve defined over an algebraically closed field which is complete with respect to a nontrivial valuation, we study its tropical Jacobian. This is done by first tropicalizing the curve, and then computing the Jacobian of the resulting weighted metric graph. In general, it is not known how to find the abstract tropicalization of a curve defined by polynomial equations, since an embedded tropicalization may not be faithful, and there is no known algorithm for carrying out semistable reduction in practice. We solve this problem in the case of hyperelliptic curves by studying admissible covers. We also describe how to take a weighted metric graph and compute its period matrix, which gives its tropical Jacobian and tropical theta divisor. Lastly, we describe the present status of reversing this process, namely how to compute a curve which has a given matrix as its period matrix.

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