arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Mark Gross.
We calculate the Brauer group of a certain Calabi-Yau threefold discovered by Mark Gross and Sorin Popescu, which is a small resolution of a complete intersection of type (2,2,2,2) with 64 ordinary double points. We find the Brauer group is (Z/8Z)^2, which is the largest known example of a Brauer group of a Calabi-Yau threefold.
This is an extended example of the study of mirror symmetry via log schemes and the discrete Legendre transform on affine manifolds, introduced by myself and Bernd Siebert in "Mirror Symmetry via Logarithmic Degeneration Data I" (math.AG/0309070). In this paper, I consider the construction as it applies to the Batyrev-Borisov construction for complete intersections in toric varieties. Given a pair of reflexive polytopes with nef decompositions dual to each other, and given polarizations on the corresponding toric varieties, we construct examples of toric degenerations and their dual intersection complexes, which are affine manifolds with singularities. We show these affine manifolds are related by the discrete Legendre transform, thus showing that the Batyrev-Borisov construction is a special case of our more general construction. The description of the dual intersection complexes in terms of the combinatoricsof the setup generalises work of Haase and Zharkov in the toric hypersurface case, and similar work of Ruan. In particular, this gives a topological description of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow fibrations on complete intersections in toric varieties.
This paper is the first arising from our project announced in math.AG/0211094, "Affine manifolds, log structures, and mirror symmetry." We aim to study mirror symmetry by studying the log structures of Illusie-Fontaine and Kato on degenerations of Calabi-Yau manifolds. The basic idea is that one can associate to certain sorts of degenerations of Calabi-Yau manifolds a log Calabi-Yau space, which is a log structure on the degenerate fibre. Then many statements about mirror symmetry which one hopes to be true for the general fibre should first be proved for this log CY space. In this paper we begin by discussing affine manifolds with singularities. Given such an affine manifold along with a polyhedral decomposition, we show how to construct a scheme consisting of a union of toric varieties. In certain non-degenerate cases, we can also construct log structures on these schemes. Conversely, given certain sorts of degenerations, one can build an affine manifold with singularities structure on the dual intersection complex of the degeneration. Mirror symmetry is then obtained as a discrete Legendre transform on these affine manifolds, thus providing an algebro-geometrization of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture. The deepest result of this paper shows an isomorphism between log complex moduli of a log CY space and log Kahler moduli of its mirror.
This is an outline of work in progress concerning an algebro-geometric form of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture. We introduce a limited type of degeneration of Calabi-Yau manifolds, which we call toric degenerations. For these, the degenerate fibre is a union of toric varieties meeting along toric strata. In addition, the total space must look locally toric outside of some singular set. This is a generalisation of both Mumford-type degenerations of abelian varieties and degenerations of Calabi-Yau hypersurfacesin toric varieties. From such a degeneration, we construct a dual intersection graph along with a singular affine structure. We also explain how to reverse this procedure, using logarithmic structures. We then use a discrete Legendre transform on these affine manifolds to recover mirror symmetry. Finally, we discuss the relationship between this construction and more classical forms of SYZ. The details of the ideas presented here will appear elsewhere.
Motivated by the picture of mirror symmetry suggested by Strominger, Yau and Zaslow, we made a conjecture concerning the Gromov-Hausdorff limits of Calabi-Yau n-folds (with Ricci-flat Kähler metric) as one approaches a large complex structure limit point in moduli; a similar conjecture was made independently by Kontsevich, Soibelman and Todorov. Roughly stated, the conjecture says that, if the metrics are normalized to have constant diameter, then this limit is the base of the conjectural special lagrangian torus fibration associated with the large complex structure limit, namely an n-sphere, and that the metric on this S^n is induced from a standard (singular) Riemannian metric on the base, the singularities of the metric corresponding to the discriminant locus of the fibration. This conjecture is trivially true for elliptic curves; in this paper we prove it in the case of K3 surfaces. Using the standard description of mirror symmetry for K3 surfaces and the hyperkähler rotation trick, we reduce the problem to that of studying Kähler degenerations of elliptic K3 surfaces, with the Kähler class approaching the wall of the Kähler cone corresponding to the fibration and the volume normalized to be one. Here we are able to write down a remarkably accurate approximation to the Ricci-flat metric -- if the elliptic fibres are of area $ε>0$, then the error is $O(e^{-C/ε})$ for some constant $C>0$. This metric is obtained by gluing together a semi-flat metric on the smooth part of the fibration with suitable Ooguri-Vafa metrics near the singular fibres. For small $ε$, this is a sufficiently good approximation that the above conjecture is then an easy consequence.
We explore a number of examples of special Lagrangian fibrations on non-compact Calabi-Yau manifolds invariant under torus actions. These include fibrations on crepant resolutions of canonical toric singularities (already found by Goldstein), proper versions of these fibrations, and fibrations on flat deformations of canonical toric singularities. We do this with an eye towards understanding the global structure and discriminant loci of such fibrations. The paper ends with some speculation, both about local mirror symmetry, and the connections of this work with the work of W.D. Ruan and D. Joyce. In the last section, we discuss the philosophy of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture in the light of a number of recent ideas of myself and Wilson, Kontsevich and Soibelman, and Joyce.
We describe birational models and decide the rationality/unirationality of moduli spaces AA_{d} (and AA^{lev}_{d}) of (1,d)-polarized abelian surfaces (with canonical level structure, respectively) for small values of d. The projective lines identified in the rational/unirational moduli spaces correspond to pencils of abelian surfaces traced on nodal threefolds living naturally in the corresponding ambient projective spaces, and whose small resolutions are new Calabi-Yau threefolds with Euler characteristic zero.
This paper focuses on a topological version on the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow mirror symmetry conjecture. Roughly put, the SYZ conjecture suggests that mirror pairs of Calabi-Yau manifolds are related by the existence of dual special Lagrangian torus fibrations. We explore this conjecture without reference to the special Lagrangian condition. In this setting, natural questions include: does there exist a nice class of T^3-fibrations for which the dual fibration can be constructed? Do such fibrations exist on a manifold such as the quintic threefold? If so, is the dual fibration the mirror? We answer these questions affirmatively. We introduce a class of topological T^3-fibrations for which duals can be constructed, including over the singular fibres. We then construct such a fibration on the quintic threefold, and show that by applying this general dualizing construction to this particular case, one obtains the mirror quintic. Thus we have constructed the mirror quintic topologically with no a priori knowledge of the mirror. This shows that in a non-degenerate (and representative) case, the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture correctly explains mirror symmetry.
We continue the study of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow mirror symmetry conjecture. Roughly put, this states that if two Calabi-Yau manifolds X and Y are mirror partners, then X and Y have special Lagrangian torus fibrations which are dual to each other. Much work on this conjecture is necessarily of a speculative nature, as in dimension 3 it is still a very difficult problem of how to construct such fibrations. Nevertheless, assuming the existence of such fibrations there are many things one can prove. This paper covers a number of issues. First it applies results from the theory of completely integrable hamiltonian systems to understand some aspects of the geometry of such fibrations. From this, using reasonable regularity assumptions on the fibrations, one can understand how the cohomology of dual fibrations are related. We then study the question of how, given one such fibration, one would put a symplectic and complex structure on the dual fibrations, generalising work of Hitchin. While this question cannot be answered at this stage, these results should give insight into the nature of the problem. We sum up these ideas in a refined version of the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conjecture. Finally, to give evidence for this conjecture, we prove it explicitly for K3 surfaces. One finds a construction of mirror symmetry for K3 surfaces which does not require the use of Torelli theorems, and is much more differential geometric in nature than previous constructions.
We prove that the moduli space A_{11}^{lev} of (1,11) polarized abelian surfaces with level structure of canonical type is birational to Klein's cubic hypersurface: a^2b+b^2c+c^2d+d^2e+e^2a=0 in P^4. Therefore, A_{11}^{lev} is unirational but not rational, and there are no Gamma_{11}-cusp forms of weight 3. The same methods also provide an easy proof of the rationality of A_{9}^{lev}.
In 1996, Strominger, Yau and Zaslow made a conjecture about the geometric relationship between two mirror Calabi-Yau manifolds. Roughly put, if X and Y are a mirror pair of such manifolds, then X should possess a special Lagrangian torus fibration $f:X\to B$ such that Y is obtained by dualizing the fibration f. This leaves a huge amount to be done to verify such conjectures. This paper takes a speculative point of view, in that it assumes that a special Lagrangian torus fibration exists on X. We address a number of questions of a topological nature: what is the relationship between the cohomology of X and the cohomology of the dual fibration? what kind of information does the Leray spectral sequence for f contain? what is the relationship between the topological (1,1) couplings of the dual of f and the (1,n-1)-couplings of X in the large complex structure limit? These questions are shown to have nice answers if a key conjecture about the monodromy diffeomorphisms about a large complex structure limit point holds. Roughly put, this conjecture says that monodromy about a large complex structure limit point can be described as a very natural generalization of a Dehn twist for an elliptic curve. Given this conjecture, we show, among other results, that the large complex radius limit of the (1,n-1) couplings on X coincide with the topological (1,1) couplings on Y, and if dim X=3, the Leray filtration and weight filtrations of the mixed Hodge structure coincide, as conjectured by myself and P.M.H. Wilson, and independently by D. Morrison.
We study the equations of abelian surfaces embedded in P^{n-1} with a line bundle of polarization of type (1,n). For n>9, we show that the ideal of a general abelian surface with this polarization is generated by quadrics, and if the embedding is Heisenberg invariant, we give a very specific description of these quadrics. These quadrics are produced using a generalization of the Moore matrices which yields a uniform description of these ideals. We prove that these equations generate the ideals using a degeneration argument, degenerating abelian surfaces to schemes obtained from Stanley-Reisner ideals of certain triangulations of the torus. Furthermore, we obtain information on how to compute the moduli spaces of abelian surfaces of type (1,n) with canonical level structure. In a sequel to this paper, we will study the structure of the equations for n<=9, and also give detailed geometric descriptions for the moduli spaces of abelian surfaces of low degree.
We give an example of the recent proposed mirror construction of Strominger, Yau and Zaslow in ``Mirror Symmetry is T-duality,'' hep-th/9606040. The paper first considers mirror symmetry for K3 surfaces in light of this construction. We then consider the example of mirror symmetry for Calabi-Yau threefolds of the type considered by Voisin and Borcea, of the form SxE/involution where S is a K3 surface with involution, and E is an elliptic curve. We show how dualizing a family of special Lagrangian real 3-tori does actually produce the mirrors in these examples.
The SO(32) heterotic string on a K3 surface is analyzed in terms of the dual theory of a type II string (or F-theory) on an elliptically fibred Calabi-Yau manifold. The results are in beautiful agreement with earlier work by Witten using very different methods. In particular, we find gauge groups of SO(32) x Sp(k) appearing at points in the moduli space identified with point-like instantons and see hypermultiplets in the (32,2k) representation becoming massless at the same time. We also discuss some aspects of the E8 x E8 case.
A type IIA string compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold which admits a K3 fibration is believed to be equivalent to a heterotic string in four dimensions. We study cases where a Calabi-Yau manifold can have more than one such fibration leading to equivalences between perturbatively inequivalent heterotic strings. This allows an analysis of an example in six dimensions due to Duff, Minasian and Witten and enables us to go some way to prove a conjecture by Kachru and Vafa. The interplay between gauge groups which arise perturbatively and nonperturbatively is seen clearly in this example. As an extreme case we discuss a Calabi-Yau manifold which admits an infinite number of K3 fibrations leading to infinite set of equivalent heterotic strings.
A primitive Calabi-Yau threefold is a non-singular Calabi-Yau threefold which cannot be written as a crepant resolution of a singular fibre of a degeneration of Calabi-Yau threefolds. These should be thought as the most basic Calabi-Yau manifolds; all others should arise through degenerations of these. This paper first continues the study of smoothability of Calabi-Yau threefolds with canonical singularities begun in the author's previous paper, ``Deforming Calabi-Yau Threefolds.'' (alg-geom 9506022). If X' is a non-singular Calabi-Yau threefold, and f:X'->X is a contraction of a divisor to a curve, we obtain results on when X is smoothable. We then discuss applications of this result to the classification of primitive Calabi-Yau threefolds. Combining the deformation theoretic results of this paper with those of ``Deforming Calabi-Yau Threefolds,'' we obtain strong restrictions on the class of primitive Calabi-Yau threefolds. We also speculate on how such work might yield results on connecting together all moduli spaces of Calabi-Yau threefolds.
We review recent work concerning topology changing phase transitions through black hole condensation in Type II string theory. We then also briefly describe a present study aimed at extending the known web of interconnections between Calabi-Yau manifolds. We show, for instance, that all 7555 Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces in weighted projective four space are mathematically connected by extremal transitions.
The year 1996 will mark the initiation of a number of new space missions to the planet Mars from which we expect to obtain a rich set of data, including spacecraft radio tracking data. Anticipating these events, we have analyzed the feasibility of testing a violation of the strong equivalence principle (SEP) with Earth-Mars ranging. Using analytic and numerical methods, we have demonstrated that ranging data can provide a useful estimate of the SEP parameter $η$. Two estimates of the predicted accuracy are quoted, one based on conventional covariance analysis, and the other based on ``modified worst case'' analysis, which assumes that systematic errors dominate the experiment. If future Mars missions provide ranging measurements with an accuracy of $σ$ meters, after ten years of ranging the expected accuracy for the parameter $η$ will be of order $σ_η\approx (1-12)\times 10^{-4}σ$. In addition, these ranging measurements will provide a significantly improved determination of the mass of the Jupiter system, independent of the test of the {\small SEP} polarization effect.