Moduli spaces of local systems and higher Teichmüller theory

Let G be a split semisimple algebraic group over Q with trivial center. Let S be a compact oriented surface, with or without boundary. We define positive representations of the fundamental group of S to G(R), construct explicitly all positive representations, and prove that they are faithful, discrete, and positive hyperbolic; the moduli space of positive representations is a topologically trivial open domain in the space of all representations. When S have holes, we defined two moduli spaces closely related to the moduli spaces of G-local systems on S. We show that they carry a lot of interesting structures. In particular we define a distinguished collection of coordinate systems, equivariant under the action of the mapping class group of S. We prove that their transition functions are subtraction free. Thus we have positive structures on these moduli spaces. Therefore we can take their points with values in any positive semifield. Their positive real points provide the two higher Teichmüller spaces related to G and S, while the points with values in the tropical semifields provide the lamination spaces. We define the motivic avatar of the Weil–Petersson form for one of these spaces. It is related to the motivic dilogarithm.     

Moduli spaces of weighted pointed stable curves

A weighted pointed curve consists of a nodal curve and a sequence of marked smooth points, each assigned a number between zero and one. A subset of the marked points may coincide if the sum of the corresponding weights is no greater than one. We construct moduli spaces for these objects using methods of the log minimal model program, and describe the induced birational morphisms between moduli spaces as the weights are varied. In the genus zero case, we explain the connection to Geometric Invariant Theory quotients of points in the projective line, and to compactifications of moduli spaces studied by Kapranov, Keel, and Losev-Manin.     

Range universal spaces

We characterize those topological spaces Y for which the Isbell and finest splitting topologies on the set C(X,Y) of all continuous functions from X into Y coincide for all topological spaces X. We also consider the same question for the coincidence of the restriction of the finest splitting topology on the upper semicontinuous set-valued functions to C(X,Y) and the finest splitting topology on C(X,Y). In the first case, the spaces in question are, after identifying points that are in each others closures, subsets of the two point Sierpiński space, which gives a converse and generalization of a result of S. Dolecki, G.H. Greco, and A. Lechicki. In the second case, the spaces in question are, after identifying points that are in each others closures, order bases for bounded complete continuous DCPOs with the Scott topology.     

The terminal hyperspace of homogeneous continua

We investigate the structure of the collection of terminal subcontinua in homogeneous continua. The main result is a reduction of this structure to six specific types. Three of these types are of one-dimensional spaces, and examples representing these types are known. It is not known whether higher dimensional examples having non-trivial terminal subcontinua and representing the three remaining types exist.     

Dicompleteness and real dicompactness of ditopological texture spaces

The authors consider interrelations between the completeness of certain initial di-uniformities and the real dicompactness of completely biregular bi-T₂ nearly plain ditopological spaces. Completions and real dicompactifications of almost plain spaces are also considered.     

Complex geometry of polygonal linkages

We present observations on the complex geometry of polygonal linkages arising in the framework of our approach to extremal problems on configuration spaces. Along with a few general remarks on applications of complex geometry and theory of residues, we present new results obtained in this way. Most of the new results are presented in the case of a planar quadrilateral linkage with generic lengths of the sides. First, we show that, for each configuration of planar quadrilateral linkage Q(a, b, c, d) with pairwise distinct side-lengths (a, b, c, d), the cross-ratio of its vertices belongs to the circle of radius ac/bd centered at the point $ 1\in \mathbb{C} $ . Next, we establish an analog of the Poncelet porism for a discrete dynamical system on a planar moduli space of a 4-bar linkage defined by the product of diagonal involutions and discuss some related issues suggested by a beautiful link to the theory of discrete integrable systems discovered by J. Duistermaat. We also present geometric results concerned with the electrostatic energy of point charges placed at the vertices of a quadrilateral linkage. In particular, we establish that all convex shapes of a quadrilateral linkage arise as the global minima of a system of charges placed at its vertices, and these shapes can be completely controlled by the value of the charge at just one vertex, which suggests a number of interesting problems. In conclusion, we describe a natural connection between certain extremal problems for configurations of linkage and convex polyhedra obtained from its configurations using the Minkowski 1897 theorem and present a few related remarks.     

Galois Covers of Moduli of Curves

Moduli spaces of pointed curves with some level structure are studied. We prove that for so-called geometric level structures, the levels encountered in the boundary are smooth if the ambient variety is smooth, and in some cases we can describe them explicitly. The smoothness implies that the moduli space of pointed curves (over any field) admits a smooth finite Galois cover. Finally, we prove that some of these moduli spaces are simply connected.     

Infinite distributive laws versus local connectedness and compactness properties

Various local connectedness and compactness properties of topological spaces are characterized by higher degrees of distributivity for their lattices of open (or closed) sets, and conversely. For example, those topological spaces for which not only the lattice of open sets but also that of closed sets is a frame, are described by the existence of web neighborhood bases, where webs are certain specific path-connected sets. Such spaces are called web spaces. The even better linked wide web spaces are characterized by F-distributivity of their topologies, and the worldwide web spaces (or C-spaces) by complete distributivity of their topologies. Similarly, strongly locally connected spaces and locally hypercompact spaces are characterized by suitable infinite distributive laws. The web space concepts are also viewed as natural extensions of spaces that are semilattices with respect to the specialization order and have continuous (unary, binary or infinitary) semilattice operations.     

Moduli spaces of arrangements of 10 projective lines with quadruple points

We classify moduli spaces of arrangements of 10 lines with quadruple points. We show that moduli spaces of arrangements of 10 lines with quadruple points may consist of more than 2 disconnected components, namely 3 or 4 distinct points. We also present defining equations to those arrangements whose moduli spaces are still reducible after taking quotients of complex conjugations.     

On the Motive of Moduli Spaces of Rank Two Vector Bundles over a Curve

We study the motive of the moduli spaces of rank two vector bundles on a curve. In the smooth case we obtain the Hodge numbers, intermediate Jacobians and number of points over a finite field as corollaries. In the singular case our computations yield the Poincaré–Hodge polynomial of Seshadri's smooth model.     

Murphy’s law in algebraic geometry: Badly-behaved deformation spaces

We consider the question: “How bad can the deformation space of an object be?” The answer seems to be: “Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.” We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over ? (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. The objects themselves are not pathological, and are in fact as nice as can be: the curves are smooth, the surfaces are automorphism-free and have very ample canonical bundle, the stable sheaves are torsion-free of rank 1, the singularities are normal and Cohen-Macaulay, etc. This justifies Mumford’s philosophy that even moduli spaces of well-behaved objects should be arbitrarily bad unless there is an a priori reason otherwise. Thus one can construct a smooth curve in projective space whose deformation space has any given number of components, each with any given singularity type, with any given non-reduced behavior. Similarly one can give a surface over $\mathbb{F}_{p}We consider the question: “How bad can the deformation space of an object be?” The answer seems to be: “Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.” We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over ℤ (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. The objects themselves are not pathological, and are in fact as nice as can be: the curves are smooth, the surfaces are automorphism-free and have very ample canonical bundle, the stable sheaves are torsion-free of rank 1, the singularities are normal and Cohen-Macaulay, etc. This justifies Mumford’s philosophy that even moduli spaces of well-behaved objects should be arbitrarily bad unless there is an a priori reason otherwise. Thus one can construct a smooth curve in projective space whose deformation space has any given number of components, each with any given singularity type, with any given non-reduced behavior. Similarly one can give a surface over that lifts to ℤ/p⁷ but not ℤ/p⁸. (Of course the results hold in the holomorphic category as well.) It is usually difficult to compute deformation spaces directly from obstruction theories. We circumvent this by relating them to more tractable deformation spaces via smooth morphisms. The essential starting point is Mn?v’s universality theorem. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000) 14B12, 14C05, 14J10, 14H50, 14B07, 14N20, 14D22, 14B05     

The structure of Valdivia compact lines

We study linearly ordered spaces which are Valdivia compact in their order topology. We find an internal characterization of these spaces and we present a counter-example disproving a conjecture posed earlier by the first author. The conjecture asserted that a compact line is Valdivia compact if its weight does not exceed ℵ₁, every point of uncountable character is isolated from one side and every closed first countable subspace is metrizable. It turns out that the last condition is not sufficient. On the other hand, we show that the conjecture is valid if the closure of the set of points of uncountable character is scattered. This improves an earlier result of the first author.     

Compact Hausdorff fuzzy topological spaces are topological

Many examples of compact fuzzy topological spaces which are highly non topological are known [5, 6]. Equally many examples of Hausdorff fuzzy topological spaces which are highly non topological can be given. In this paper we show that the two properties - compact and Hausdorff - combined however necessarily imply that the fuzzy topological space is topological. This at once solves some open questions with regard to the compactification of fuzzy topological spaces [8]. It also emphasizes once more the particular role played by compact Hausdorff topological spaces not only in the category of topological spaces but even in the category of fuzzy topological spaces.     

The group of Weierstrass points of a plane quartic with at least eight hyperflexes

The group generated by the Weierstrass points of a smooth curve in its Jacobian is an intrinsic invariant of the curve. We determine this group for all smooth quartics with eight hyperflexes or more. Since Weierstrass points are closely related to moduli spaces of curves, as an application, we get bounds on both the rank and the torsion part of this group for a generic quartic having a fixed number of hyperflexes in the moduli space of curves of genus 3.

     

Virtual moduli cycles and Gromov-Witten invariants of algebraic varieties

In this paper, we define the virtual moduli cycle of moduli spaces with perfect tangent-obstruction theory. The two interesting moduli spaces of this type are moduli spaces of vector bundles over surfaces and moduli spaces of stable morphisms from curves to projective varieties. As an application, we define the Gromov-Witten invariants of smooth projective varieties and prove all its basic properties.

     

Brush spaces and the fixed point property

We introduce the notions of a brush space and a weak brush space. Each of these spaces has a compact connected core with attached connected fibers and may be either compact or non-compact. Many spaces, both in the Hausdorff non-metrizable setting and in the metric setting, have realizations as (weak) brush spaces. We show that these spaces have the fixed point property if and only if subspaces with core and finitely many fibers have the fixed point property. This result generalizes the fixed point result for generalized Alexandroff/Urysohn Squares in Hagopian and Marsh (2010) [4]. We also look at some familiar examples, with and without the fixed point property, from Bing (1969) [1], Connell (1959) [3], Knill (1967) [7] and note the brush space structures related to these examples.     

Countable connected Hausdorff and Urysohn bunches of arcs in the plane

In this paper, we answer a question by Krasinkiewicz, Reńska and Sobolewski by constructing countable connected Hausdorff and Urysohn spaces as quotient spaces of bunches of arcs in the plane. We also consider a generalization of graphs by allowing vertices to be continua and replacing edges by not necessarily connected sets. We require only that two “vertices” be in the same quasi-component of the “edge” that contains them. We observe that if a graph G cannot be embedded in the plane, then any generalized graph modeled on G is not embeddable in the plane. As a corollary we obtain not planar bunches of arcs with their natural quotients Hausdorff or Urysohn. This answers another question by Krasinkiewicz, Reńska and Sobolewski.     

Triangulations and Volume Form on Moduli Spaces of Flat Surfaces

In this paper, we study the moduli spaces of flat surfaces with cone singularities verifying the following property: there exists a union of disjoint geodesic tree on the surface such that the complement is a translation surface. Those spaces can be viewed as deformations of the moduli spaces of translation surfaces in the space of flat surfaces. We prove that such spaces are quotients of flat complex affine manifolds by a group acting properly discontinuously, and preserving a parallel volume form. Translation surfaces can be considered as a special case of flat surfaces with erasing forest, in this case, it turns out that our volume form coincides with the usual volume form (which are defined via the period mapping) up to a multiplicative constant. We also prove similar results for the moduli space of flat metric structures on the n-punctured sphere with prescribed cone angles up to homothety. When all the angles are smaller than 2π, it is known (cf. [T]) that this moduli space is a complex hyperbolic orbifold. In this particular case, we prove that our volume form induces a volume form which is equal to the complex hyperbolic volume form up to a multiplicative constant.