Related papers: Strings and the stable cohomology of mapping class…

Massless modes of both heterotic and Type II string compactifications on compact manifolds are determined by vector bundle valued cohomology classes. Various applications of our recent algorithm for the computation of line bundle valued…

In 1984, Charney and Lee defined a category of stable curves and exhibited a rational homology equivalence from its geometric realisation to (the analytification of) the moduli stack of stable curves, also known as the…

Vector bundle cohomology represents a key ingredient for string phenomenology, being associated with the massless spectrum arising in string compactifications on smooth compact manifolds. Although standard algorithmic techniques exist for…

In this article we define stable supercurves and super stable maps of genus zero via labeled trees. We prove that the moduli space of stable supercurves and super stable maps of fixed tree type are quotient superorbifolds. To this end, we…

We prove a homological stability theorem for the moduli spaces of manifolds diffeomorphic to g(S^n x S^n), provided n > 2. This generalises Harer's stability theorem for the homology of mapping class groups. Combined with previous work of…

We study a spectral sequence that computes the (mod 2) S^1-equivariant homology of the free loop space LM of a manifold M (the "string homology" of M). Using it and knowledge of the string topology operations on the homology of LM, we…

Since Quillen proved his famous equivalences of homotopy categories in 1969, much work has been done towards classifying the rational homotopy types of simply connected topological places. The majority of this work has focused on rational…

We study a space of genus $g$ stable, $n$-marked tropical curves with total edge length $1$. Its rational homology is identified both with top-weight cohomology of the complex moduli space $M_{g,n}$ and with the homology of a marked version…

We prove that homological stability fails for the moduli space of any simply-connected closed smooth 4-manifold in any degree of homology, unlike what happens in all dimensions $\neq 4$. We detect also the homological discrepancy between…

Consider the cotangent bundle of a closed Riemannian manifold and an almost complex structure close to the one induced by the Riemannian metric. For Hamiltonians which grow for instance quadratically in the fibers outside of a compact set,…

Just as a symmetric surface with separating fixed locus halves into two oriented bordered surfaces, an arbitrary symmetric surface halves into two oriented symmetric half-surfaces, i.e. surfaces with crosscaps. Motivated in part by the…

Let $\mathbb{k}$ be a commutative ring with global dimension zero. We show that we can rigidify homotopy coherent comodules in connective modules over the Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectrum of $\mathbb{k}$. That is, the $\infty$-category of…

Let $X$ be a smooth projective curve of genus $g\geq 2$ over the complex numbers. Fix $n\geq 2$, and an integer $d$. A pair $(E,\phi)$ over $X$ consists of an algebraic vector bundle $E$ of rank $n$ and degree $d$ over $X$ and a section…

We develop a theory for stable maps to curves with divisible ramification. For a fixed integer $r>0$, we show that the condition of every ramification locus being divisible by $r$ is equivalent to the existence of an $r$th root of a…

In this mostly expository paper we review several known results about the cohomology of moduli spaces of smooth and stable curves, focusing in particular on low degree cohomology. We also give a new proof of Harer's theorem describing the…

The primary goal of this paper is to find a homotopy theoretic approximation to moduli spaces of holomorphic maps Riemann surfaces into complex projective space. There is a similar treatment of a partial compactification of these moduli…

Stable cohomology is a generalization of Tate cohomology to associative rings, first defined by Pierre Vogel. For a commutative local ring $R$ with residue field $k$, stable cohomology modules $\widehat{\mathrm{Ext}}{\vphantom…

In this thesis, we explore two approaches to string phenomenology. In the first half of the work, we investigate M-theory compactifications on spaces with co-dimension four, orbifold singularities. We construct M-theory on C^2/Z_N by…

I present arguments to the affect that the topological phase of string theory must be event-symmetric. This motivates a search for a universal string group for discrete strings in event-symmetric space-time which unifies space-time symmetry…

We prove the genus zero part of the generalized Witten conjecture relating moduli spaces of spin curves to Gelfand-Dickey hierarchies. That is, we show that intersection numbers on the moduli space of stable r-spin curves assemble into a…