-rigidity of Lagrangian submanifolds and punctured holomorphic disks in the cotangent bundle

Our main result is the $\mathbb {\mathcal {C}}^{0}$ -rigidity of the area spectrum and the Maslov class of Lagrangian submanifolds. This relies on the existence of punctured pseudoholomorphic disks in cotangent bundles with boundary on the zero section, whose boundaries represent any integral homology class. We discuss further applications of these punctured disks in symplectic geometry.

Hyperkähler metrics near Lagrangian submanifolds and symplectic groupoids

The first part of this paper is a generalization of the Feix–Kaledin theorem on the existence of a hyperkähler metric on a neighborhood of the zero section of the cotangent bundle of a Kähler manifold. We show that the problem of constructing a hyperkähler structure on a neighborhood of a complex Lagrangian submanifold in a holomorphic symplectic manifold reduces to the existence of certain deformations of holomorphic symplectic structures. The Feix–Kaledin structure is recovered from the twisted cotangent bundle. We then show that every holomorphic symplectic groupoid over a compact holomorphic Poisson surface of Kähler type has a hyperkähler structure on a neighborhood of its identity section. More generally, we reduce the existence of a hyperkähler structure on a symplectic realization of a holomorphic Poisson manifold of any dimension to the existence of certain deformations of holomorphic Poisson structures adapted from Hitchin’s unobstructedness theorem.

Stable Pair Invariants of Local Calabi–Yau 4-folds

In 2008, Klemm–Pandharipande defined Gopakumar–Vafa type invariants of a Calabi–Yau 4-folds $X$ using Gromov–Witten theory. Recently, Cao–Maulik–Toda proposed a conjectural description of these invariants in terms of stable pair theory. When $X$ is the total space of the sum of two line bundles over a surface $S$, and all stable pairs are scheme theoretically supported on the zero section, we express stable pair invariants in terms of intersection numbers on Hilbert schemes of points on $S$. As an application, we obtain new verifications of the Cao–Maulik–Toda conjectures for low-degree curve classes and find connections to Carlsson–Okounkov numbers. Some of our verifications involve genus zero Gopakumar–Vafa type invariants recently determined in the context of the log-local principle by Bousseau–Brini–van Garrel. Finally, using the vertex formalism, we provide a few more verifications of the Cao–Maulik–Toda conjectures when thickened curves contribute and also for the case of local $\mathbb{P}^3$.

Linking of Lagrangian Tori and Embedding Obstructions in Symplectic 4-Manifolds

We classify weakly exact, rational Lagrangian tori in $T^* \mathbb{T}^2- 0_{\mathbb{T}^2}$ up to Hamiltonian isotopy. This result is related to the classification theory of closed $1$-forms on $\mathbb{T}^n$ and also has applications to symplectic topology. As a 1st corollary, we strengthen a result due independently to Eliashberg–Polterovich and to Giroux describing Lagrangian tori in $T^* \mathbb{T}^2-0_{\mathbb{T}^2}$, which are homologous to the zero section. As a 2nd corollary, we exhibit pairs of disjoint totally real tori $K_1, K_2 \subset T^*\mathbb{T}^2$, each of which is isotopic through totally real tori to the zero section, but such that the union $K_1 \cup K_2$ is not even smoothly isotopic to a Lagrangian. In the 2nd part of the paper, we study linking of Lagrangian tori in $({\mathbb{R}}^4, \omega )$ and in rational symplectic $4$-manifolds. We prove that the linking properties of such tori are determined by purely algebro-topological data, which can often be deduced from enumerative disk counts in the monotone case. We also use this result to describe certain Lagrangian embedding obstructions.

Bounding Tangencies of Sections on Elliptic Surfaces

Given an elliptic surface $\mathcal{E}\to \mathcal{C}$ over a field $k$ of characteristic zero equipped with zero section $O$ and another section $P$ of infinite order, we give a simple and explicit upper bound on the number of points where $O$ is tangent to a multiple of $P$.

Symplectic deformations of Floer homology and non-contractible periodic orbits in twisted disc bundles

In this paper, we establish the existence of periodic orbits belonging to any [Formula: see text]-atoroidal free homotopy class for Hamiltonian systems in the twisted disc bundle, provided that the compactly supported time-dependent Hamiltonian function is sufficiently large over the zero section and the magnitude of the weakly exact [Formula: see text]-form [Formula: see text] admitting a primitive with at most linear growth on the universal cover is sufficiently small. The proof relies on showing the invariance of Floer homology under symplectic deformations and on the computation of Floer homology for the cotangent bundle endowed with its canonical symplectic form. As a consequence, we also prove that, for any non-trivial atoroidal free homotopy class and any positive finite interval, if the magnitude of a magnetic field admitting a primitive with at most linear growth on the universal cover is sufficiently small, the twisted geodesic flow associated to the magnetic field has a periodic orbit on almost every energy level in the given interval whose projection to the underlying manifold represents the given free homotopy class. This application is carried out by showing the finiteness of the restricted Biran–Polterovich–Salamon capacity.

Nearly free curves and arrangements: a vector bundle point of view

Over the past forty years many papers have studied logarithmic sheaves associated to reduced divisors, in particular logarithmic bundles associated to plane curves. An interesting family of these curves are the so-called free ones for which the associated logarithmic sheaf is the direct sum of two line bundles. Terao conjectured thirty years ago that when a curve is a finite set of distinct lines (i.e. a line arrangement) its freeness depends solely on its combinatorics, but this has only been proved for sets of up to 12 lines. In looking for a counter-example to Terao’s conjecture, the nearly free curves introduced by Dimca and Sticlaru arise naturally. We prove here that the logarithmic bundle associated to a nearly free curve possesses a minimal non-zero section that vanishes on one single point, P say, called the jumping point, and that this characterises the bundle. We then give a precise description of the behaviour of P. Based on detailed examples we then show that the position of P relative to its corresponding nearly free arrangement of lines may or may not be a combinatorial invariant, depending on the chosen combinatorics.

Piunikhin-Salamon-Schwarz isomorphisms and spectral invariants for conormal bundle

We give a construction of the Piunikhin-Salamon-Schwarz isomorphism between the Morse homology and the Floer homology generated by Hamiltonian orbits starting at the zero section and ending at the conormal bundle. We also prove that this isomorphism is natural in the sense that it commutes with the isomorphisms between the Morse homology for different choices of the Morse function and the Floer homology for different choices of the Hamiltonian. We define a product on the Floer homology and prove triangle inequality for conormal spectral invariants with respect to this product.

Lagrangian exotic spheres

Let [Formula: see text]. We prove that the cotangent bundles [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] of oriented homotopy [Formula: see text]-spheres [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are symplectomorphic only if [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] denotes the group of oriented homotopy [Formula: see text]-spheres under connected sum, [Formula: see text] denotes the subgroup of those that bound a parallelizable [Formula: see text]-manifold, and where [Formula: see text] denotes [Formula: see text] with orientation reversed. We further show that if [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] admits a Lagrangian embedding in [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text]. The proofs build on [1] and [18] in combination with a new cut-and-paste argument; that also yields some interesting explicit exact Lagrangian embeddings, for instance of the sphere [Formula: see text] into the plumbing [Formula: see text] of cotangent bundles of certain exotic spheres. As another application, we show that there are re-parametrizations of the zero-section in the cotangent bundle of a sphere that are not Hamiltonian isotopic (as maps rather than as submanifolds) to the original zero-section.

Equivariant Maps from Stiefel Bundles to Vector Bundles

Let E → B be a fibre bundle and let Eʹ → B be a vector bundle. Let G be a compact Lie group acting fibre preservingly and freely on both E and Eʹ – 0, where 0 is the zero section of Eʹ → B. Let f : E → Eʹ be a fibre-preserving G-equivariant map and let Zf = {x ∈ E | f(x) = 0} be the zero set of f. In this paper we give a lower bound for the cohomological dimension of the zero set Zf when a fibre of E → B is a real Stiefel manifold with a free ℤ/2-action or a complex Stiefel manifold with a free 𝕊1-action. This generalizes a well-known result of Dold for sphere bundles equipped with free involutions.