Related papers: Some open questions about symplectic 4-manifolds, …
We investigate the notion of symplectic divisorial compactification for symplectic 4-manifolds with either convex or concave type boundary. This is motivated by the notion of compactifying divisors for open algebraic surfaces. We give a…
This survey presents some recent results by the authors and Polterovich on the topological properties of ruled symplectic manifolds. The bundle M \to P \to B that is associated with a ruled manifold has the group of Hamiltonian…
This set of lectures aims to give an overview of Donaldson's theory of linear systems on symplectic manifolds and the algebraic and geometric invariants to which they give rise. After collecting some of the relevant background, we discuss…
By analyzing known presentations of the pure mapping groups of orientable surfaces of genus $g$ with $b$ boundary components and $n$ punctures, we show that these groups are isomorphic to some groups related to the braid groups and the…
We study smooth projective varieties with small dual variety using methods from symplectic topology. We prove the affine parts of such varieties are subcritical, and that the hyperplane class is invertible in their quantum cohomology. We…
This is an exposition of the Donaldson geometric flow on the space of symplectic forms on a closed smooth four-manifold, representing a fixed cohomology class. The original work appeared in [1].
We calculate the Seiberg-Witten invariants of branched covers of prime degree, where the branch locus consists of embedded spheres. Aside from the formula itself, our calculations give rise to some new constraints on configurations of…
We discuss some examples in which symplectic monodromy (provably or conjecturally) splits off the symplectic mapping class group, hoping to illustrate different techniques and inputs to the arguments. Along the way we formulate several open…
V.V. Sharko in his papers and books has investigated functions on manifolds and cobordism. Braids intimately connect with functions on manifolds. These connections are represented by mapping class groups of corresponding discs, by…
The purpose of this note is to explain a combinatorial description of closed smooth oriented 4-manifolds in terms of positive Dehn twist factorizations of surface mapping classes, and further explore these connections. This is obtained via…
The space of monic squarefree complex polynomials has a stratification according to the multiplicities of the critical points. We introduce a method to study these strata by way of the infinite-area translation surface associated to the…
The geography problem is usually stated for simply connected symplectic 4-manifolds. When the first cohomology is nontrivial, however, one can restate the problem taking into account how close the symplectic manifold is to satisfying the…
We describe symmetries of the braid monodromy decomposition for a class of plane curves defined over reals including the real curves with no real points and proving new divisibility relations for Alexander invariants of such curves.
This is a collection of results on the topology of toric symplectic manifolds. Using an idea of Borisov, we show that a closed symplectic manifold supports at most a finite number of toric structures. Further, the product of two projective…
On a symplectic manifold $(M, \omega)$, a spacefilling brane structure is a closed 2-form $F$ which determines a complex structure, with respect to which $F +i\omega$ is holomorphic symplectic. For holomorphic symplectic compact K\"ahler…
In this manuscript we study braid varieties, a class of affine algebraic varieties associated to positive braids. Several geometric constructions are presented, including certain torus actions on braid varieties and holomorphic symplectic…
We present a survey of some results and questions related to the notion of scalar curvature in the setting of symplectic supermanifolds.
The main purpose of this paper is twofold. We first want to analyze in details the meaningful geometric aspect of the method introduced in the previous paper [12], concerning regularity of families of irreducible, nodal "curves" on a…
By a result of Kedra and Pinsonnault, we know that the topology of groups of symplectomorphisms of symplectic 4-manifolds is complicated in general. However, in all known (very specific) examples, the rational cohomology rings of…
Generic relative immersions of compact one-manifolds in the closed unit disk, i.e. divides, provide a powerful combinatorial framework, and allow a topological construction of fibered classical links, for which the monodromy diffeomorphism…