Related papers: Gromov-Witten theory, Hurwitz numbers, and Matrix …

This survey grew out of notes accompanying a cycle of lectures at the workshop Modern Trends in Gromov-Witten Theory, in Hannover. The lectures are devoted to interactions between Hurwitz theory and Gromov-Witten theory, with a particular…

The goal of this article is to motivate and describe how Gromov-Witten theory can and has provided tools to understand the moduli space of curves. For example, ideas and methods from Gromov-Witten theory have led to both conjectures and…

We review some relations occurring between the combinatorial intersection theory on the moduli spaces of stable curves and the asymptotic behavior of the 't Hooft-Kontsevich matrix integrals. In particular, we give an alternative proof of…

These are (not updated) notes from the lectures I gave in St.Petersburg in July of 2001. Their goal is to give an expository account of the proof of Kontsevich's combinatorial formula for intersections on moduli spaces of curves following…

We consider a Gaussian random matrix theory in the presence of an external matrix source. This matrix model, after duality (a simple version of the closed/open string duality), yields a generalized Kontsevich model through an appropriate…

In this paper we study relations between intersection numbers on moduli spaces of curves and Hurwitz numbers. First, we prove two formulas expressing Hurwitz numbers of (generalized) polynomials via intersections on moduli spaces of curves.…

We study algebraic aspects of Kontsevich integrals as generating functions for intersection theory over moduli space and review the derivation of Virasoro and KdV constraints. 1. Intersection numbers 2. The Kontsevich integral 2.1. The main…

Hurwitz numbers, which count certain covers of the projective line (or, equivalently, factorizations of permuations into transpositions), have been extensively studied for over a century. The Gromov-Witten potential F of a point, the…

Kontsevich's work on Airy matrix integrals has led to explicit results for the intersection numbers of the moduli space of curves. In this article we show that a duality between k-point functions on $N\times N$ matrices and N-point…

In a recent work, R. Pandharipande, J. P. Solomon and the second author have initiated a study of the intersection theory on the moduli space of Riemann surfaces with boundary. They conjectured that the generating series of the intersection…

We explain how Gaussian integrals over ensemble of complex matrices with source matrices generate Hurwitz numbers of the most general type, namely, Hurwitz numbers with arbitrary orientable or non-orientable base surface and arbitrary…

In [5] I.P. Goulden, D.M. Jackson, and R. Vakil formulated a conjecture relating certain Hurwitz numbers (enumerating ramified coverings of the sphere) to the intersection theory on a conjectural Picard variety. We are going to use their…

Moduli spaces of algebraic curves and closely related to them Hurwitz spaces, that is, spaces of meromorphic functions on the curves, arise naturally in numerous problems of algebraic geometry and mathematical physics, especially in…

Using the celebrated Witten-Kontsevich theorem, we prove a recursive formula of the $n$-point functions for intersection numbers on moduli spaces of curves. It has been used to prove the Faber intersection number conjecture and motivated us…

We define the dimension 2g-1 Faber-Hurwitz Chow/homology classes on the moduli space of curves, parametrizing curves expressible as branched covers of P^1 with given ramification over infinity and sufficiently many fixed ramification points…

Using Gromov-Witten theory the numbers of complex plane rational curves of degree d through 3d-1 general given points can be computed recursively with Kontsevich's formula that follows from the so-called WDVV equations. In this paper we…

In this paper, we collect a number of facts about double Hurwitz numbers, where the simple branch points are replaced by their more general analogues --- completed (r+1)-cycles. In particular, we give a geometric interpretation of these…

Witten's top Chern class is a particular cohomology class on the moduli space of Riemann surfaces endowed with r-spin structures. It plays a key role in Witten's conjecture relating to the intersection theory on these moduli spaces. Our…

The goal of these notes is to provide an informal introduction to Gromov-Witten theory with an emphasis on its role in counting curves in surfaces. These notes are based on a talk given at the Fields Institute during a week-long conference…

We outline a strategy for computing intersection numbers on smooth varieties with torus actions using a residue formula of Bott. As an example, Gromov-Witten numbers of twisted cubic and elliptic quartic curves on some general complete…