Related papers: Thurston obstructions and tropical geometry
We investigate the combinatorial and dynamical properties of so-called nearly Euclidean Thurston maps, or NET maps. These maps are perturbations of many-to-one folding maps of an affine two-sphere to itself. The close relationship between…
We develop techniques that lay out a basis for generalizations of the famous Thurston's Topological Characterization of Rational Functions for an infinite set of marked points and branched coverings of infinite degree. Analogously to the…
The twistor space of the sphere S^{2n} is an isotropic Grassmannian that fibers over S^{2n}. An orthogonal complex structure on a subdomain of S^{2n} (a complex structure compatible with the round metric) determines a section of this…
We connect the homotopy type of simplicial moduli spaces of algebraic structures to the cohomology of their deformation complexes. Then we prove that under several assumptions, mapping spaces of algebras over a monad in an appropriate…
We construct a moduli space of stable pairs over a smooth projective variety, parametrizing morphisms from a fixed coherent sheaf to a varying sheaf of fixed topological type, subject to a stability condition. This generalizes the notion…
The prototypical examples of tropical compactifications are compactifications of complements of hyperplane arrangements, which posses a number of remarkable properties not satisfied by more general tropical compactifications of closed…
We study metric aspects of the universal moduli space of solutions to Hitchin's equations as the complex structure $J$ varies over the Teichm\"uller space $\mathcal{T}$ of a closed surface $\Sigma$. Our approach is gauge theoretical and…
We introduce a scheme-theoretic enrichment of the principal objects of tropical geometry. Using a category of semiring schemes, we construct tropical hypersurfaces as schemes over idempotent semirings such as $\mathbb{T} = (\mathbb{R}\cup…
Among Thurston maps (orientation-preserving, postcritically finite branched coverings of the 2-sphere to itself), those that arise as subdivision maps of a finite subdivision rule form a special family. For such maps, we investigate…
In this paper, we present a unified study of the moduli space of tropical curves and Outer space which we link via period maps to the moduli space of tropical abelian varieties and the space of positive definite quadratic forms. Our work is…
This is a survey of the theory of complex projective (CP^1) structures on compact surfaces. After some preliminary discussion and definitions, we concentrate on three main topics: (1) Using the Schwarzian derivative to parameterize the…
Let $G$ be a Lie group with a biinvariant metric, not necessarily positive definite. It is shown that a certain construction carried out in an earlier paper for the fundamental group of a closed surface may be extended to an arbitrary…
Let G be a Lie group endowed with a bi-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metric. Then the moduli space of flat connections on a principal G-bundle, P\to \Sigma, over a compact oriented surface, \Sigma, carries a Poisson structure. If we…
By means of an appropriate re-scaling of the metric in a Lagrangian, we are able to reduce it to a kinetic term only. This form enables us to examine the extended complexified solution set (complex moduli space) of field theories by finding…
We construct and study the moduli of hypersurfaces in toric orbifolds. Let $X$ be a projective toric orbifold and $\alpha \in Cl(X)$ an ample class. The moduli space is constructed as a quotient of the linear system $|\alpha|$ by $G =…
This thesis was motivated by a desire to understand the natural geometry of hyperbolic monopole moduli spaces. We take two approaches. Firstly we develop the twistor theory of singular hyperbolic monopoles and use it to study the geometry…
The moduli space dynamics of vortices in the Jackiw-Pi model where a non-relativistic Schrodinger field couples minimally to Chern-Simons gauge field, is considered. It is shown that the difficulties in direct application of Manton's method…
We consider the self-dual vortex equations on a positive line bundle L --> M over a compact Kaehler manifold of arbitrary dimension. When M is simply connected, the moduli space of vortex solutions is a projective space. When M is an…
In his influential work, Thurston introduced a norm on the second homology group of compact orientable 3-manifolds M, which by duality also determines a dual norm on the second cohomology group. A natural question, initiated by Thurston, is…
We prove that any left-invariant symplectic almost complex structure on a Thurston manifold which is compatible with its canonical left-invariant Riemannian metric has holomorphic type 1.