Related papers: Conormal bundles to knots and the Gopakumar-Vafa c…
This paper continues the study of decompositions of a smooth 4-manifold into two handlebodies with handles of index $\leq2$. Part I gave existence results in terms of spines and chain complexes over the fundamental group of the ambient…
The concordance group of knots in the three-sphere contains an infinite subgroup generated by elements of order two, each one of which is represented by a knot K with the property that for every n > 0, the n-fold cyclic cover of S^3…
We derive formulas for the classical Chern-Simons invariant of irreducible $SU(n)$-flat connections on negatively curved locally symmetric three-manifolds. We determine the condition for which the theory remains consistent (with basic…
On a compact K\"{a}hler manifold $X$ with a holomorphic 2-form $\a$, there is an almost complex structure associated with $\a$. We show how this implies vanishing theorems for the Gromov-Witten invariants of $X$. This extends the approach,…
We prove the KKV conjecture expressing Gromov-Witten invariants of K3 surfaces in terms of modular forms. Our results apply in every genus and for every curve class. The proof uses the Gromov-Witten/Pairs correspondence for K3-fibered…
We introduce new topological quantum invariants of compact oriented 3-manifolds with boundary where the boundary is a disjoint union of two identical surfaces. The invariants are constructed via surgery on manifolds of the form $F \times I$…
The focus of these lectures is the Gopakumar-Vafa's insight that ``Large N dualities'' (relating gauge theories and closed strings) are realized, in certain cases, by "transition in geometry". In their pivotal 1998 example, the gauge theory…
We introduce the notion of a flat extension of a connection $\theta$ on a principal bundle. Roughly speaking, $\theta$ admits a flat extension if it arises as the pull-back of a component of a Maurer-Cartan form. For trivial bundles over…
We present three large families of new examples of plumbed 3-manifolds that bound rational homology 4-balls. These are constructed using two operations, also defined here, that preserve the lack of a lattice embedding obstruction to…
We prove a version of the Arnol'd conjecture for Lagrangian submanifolds of conformal symplectic manifolds: a Lagrangian $L$ which has non-zero Morse-Novikov homology for the restriction of the Lee form $\beta$ cannot be disjoined from…
We produce an equality between the Gromov-Witten invariants of the moduli space M of rank two odd degree stable vector bundles over a Riemann surface $\Sigma$ and the Donaldson invariants of the algebraic surface $\Sigma \times P^1$. We…
We show that moduli spaces of transversely cut-out (perturbed) pseudo-holomorphic curves in an almost complex manifold carry canonical relative smooth structures ("relative to the moduli space of domain curves"). The main point is that…
We show that the notion of ribbon rational homology cobordism yields a partial order on the set of aspherical $3$-manifolds, thus supporting a conjecture formulated by Daemi, Lidman, Vela-Vick and Wong. Our proof is built on Agol's recent…
We construct a 2+1 dimensional classical gauge theory on manifolds with spin structure whose action is a refinement of the Atiyah-Patodi- Singer eta-invariant for twisted Dirac operators. We investigate the properties of the Lagrangian…
We consider exact Lagrangian submanifolds in cotangent bundles. Under certain additional restrictions (triviality of the fundamental group of the cotangent bundle, and of the Maslov class and second Stiefel-Whitney class of the Lagrangian…
Chern-Simons theories, which are topological quantum field theories, provide a field theoretic framework for the study of knots and links in three dimensions. These are rare examples of quantum field theories which can be exactly and…
We consider an open string version of the topological twist previously proposed for sigma-models with G2 target spaces. We determine the cohomology of open strings states and relate these to geometric deformations of calibrated submanifolds…
In the usual setup, the grading on Floer homology is relative: it is unique only up to adding a constant. "Graded Lagrangian submanifolds" are Lagrangian submanifolds with a bit of extra structure, which fixes the ambiguity in the grading.…
The quantum modularity conjecture, first introduced by Don Zagier, is a general statement about a relation between $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ quantum invariants of links and 3-manifolds at roots of unity related by a modular transformation. In this…
We give a proof of a result of D. Peterson's identifying the quantum cohomology ring of a Grassmannian with the reduced coordinate ring of a certain subvariety of $GL_n$. The totally positive part of this subvariety is then constructed and…