New moduli spaces from string background independence consistency conditions

In string field theory an infinitesimal background deformation is implemented as a canonical transformation whose hamiltonian function is defined by moduli spaces of punctured Riemann surfaces having one special puncture. We show that the consistency conditions associated to the commutator of two deformations are implemented by virtue of the existence of moduli spaces of punctured surfaces with two special punctures. The spaces are antisymmetric under the exchange of the special punctures, and satisfy recursion relations relating them to moduli spaces with one special puncture and to string vertices. We develop the theory of moduli spaces of surfaces with arbitrary number of special punctures and indicate their relevance to the construction of a string field theory that makes no reference to a conformal background. Our results also imply a partial antibracket cohomology theorem for the string action.     

Configuration spaces of planar mechanical linkages with one degree of freedom

We study, from the kinematic point of view, planar mechanical linkages known as quadrangles (or sometimes as three-bar mechanisms). We discuss geometric structures on their moduli (configuration) spaces and show that they can be classified by means of invariants of Vassiliev type in the space of all moduli spaces.     

Moduli Spaces and Grassmannian

We calculate the homomorphism of the cohomology induced by the Krichever map of moduli spaces of curves into infinite-dimensional Grassmannian. This calculation can be used to compute the homology classes of cycles on moduli spaces of curves that are defined in terms of Weierstrass points.     

Instantons on Gravitons

Yang-Mills instantons on ALE gravitational instantons were constructed by Kronheimer and Nakajima in terms of matrices satisfying algebraic equations. These were conveniently organized into a quiver. We construct generic Yang-Mills instantons on ALF gravitational instantons. Our data are formulated in terms of matrix-valued functions of a single variable, that are in turn organized into a bow. We introduce the general notion of a bow, its representation, its associated data and moduli space of solutions. For a judiciously chosen bow the Nahm transform maps any bow solution to an instanton on an ALF space. We demonstrate that this map respects all complex structures on the moduli spaces, so it is likely to be an isometry, and use this fact to study the asymptotics of the moduli spaces of instantons on ALF spaces.     

Mirror symmetry,mirror map and applications to complete intersection Calabi-Yau spaces

We extend the discussion of mirror symmetry, Picard-Fuchs equations, instanton corrected Yukawa couplings and the topological one-loop partition function to the case of complete intersections with higher dimensional moduli spaces. We will develop a new method of obtaining the instanton corrected Yukawa couplings through a study of the solutions of the Picard-Fuchs equations. This leads to closed formulas for the prepotential for the Kähler moduli fields induced from the ambient space for all complete intersections in nonsingular weighted projective spaces. As examples we treat part of the moduli space of the phenomenologically interesting three-generation models which are found in this class. We also apply our method to solve the simplest model in which a topology change was observed and discuss examples of complete intersections in singular ambient spaces.     

Nonperturbative model of Liouville gravity

We formulate nonperturbative 2D gravity in the framework of Liouville theory. In particular, we express the specific heat of pure gravity in terms of an expansion of integrals on moduli spaces of punctured Riemann spheres. We recognize the relevant divisors on moduli spaces and write the integrands in terms of the Liouville action. We evaluate the integrals (rational intersections) and show that satisfies the Painlevé I.     

Momentum lattice for CHL string

We propose some analogue of the Narain lattice for CHL string. The symmetries of this lattice are the symmetries of the perturbative spectrum. We explain in this language the known results about the possible gauge groups in compactified theory. For the four-dimensional theory, we explicitly describe the action of S-duality on the background fields. We show that the moduli spaces of the six-, seven- and eight-dimensional compactifications coincide with the moduli spaces of the conjectured type IIA, M-theory and F-theory duals. We classify the rational components of the boundary of the moduli space in seven, eight and nine dimensions.     

Deligne Products of Line Bundles over Moduli Spaces of Curves

We study Deligne products for forgetful maps between moduli spaces of marked curves by offering a closed formula for tautological line bundles associated to marked points. In particular, we show that the Deligne products for line bundles on the total spaces corresponding to “forgotten” marked points are positive integral multiples of the Weil-Petersson bundles on the base moduli spaces. Partially supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.     

Around Polygons in ℝ3 and S3

We survey certain moduli spaces in low dimensions and some of the geometric structures that they carry, and then construct identifications among all of these spaces. In particular, we identify the moduli spaces of polygons in ℝ³ and S ³, the moduli space of restricted representations of the fundamental group of a punctured 2-sphere, the moduli space of flat connections on a punctured sphere, the moduli space of parabolic bundles on a sphere, the moduli space of weighted points on ℂℙ¹ and the symplectic quotient of SO(3) acting diagonally on (S ²) ⁿ . All of these spaces depend on parameters and some the above identifications require the parameters to be small. One consequence of this work is that these spaces are all biholomorphic with respect to the most natural complex structures they can each be given. Received: 20 September 1999 / Accepted: 28 November 2000     

Quaternionic monopoles

We present the simplest non-abelian version of Seiberg-Witten theory: Quaternionic monopoles. These monopoles are associated withSpin ^h (4)-structures on 4-manifolds and form finite-dimensional moduli spaces. On a Kähler surface the quaternionic monopole equations decouple and lead to the projective vortex equation for holomorphic pairs. This vortex equation comes from a moment map and gives rise to a new complex-geometric stability concept. The moduli spaces of quaternionic monopoles on Kähler surfaces have two closed subspaces, both naturally isomorphic with moduli spaces of canonically stable holomorphic pairs. These components intersect along a Donaldson instanton space and can be compactified with Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces. This should provide a link between the two corresponding theories.Partially supported by: AGE-Algebraic Geometry in Europe, contract No ERBCHRXCT940557 (BBW 93.0187), and by SNF, nr. 21-36111.92     

Integrating over Higgs Branches

We develop some useful techniques for integrating over Higgs branches in supersymmetric theories with 4 and 8 supercharges. In particular, we define a regularized volume for hyperk?hler quotients. We evaluate this volume for certain ALE and ALF spaces in terms of the hyperk?hler periods. We also reduce these volumes for a large class of hyperk?hler quotients to simpler integrals. These quotients include complex coadjoint orbits, instanton moduli spaces on ℝ⁴ and ALE manifolds, Hitchin spaces, and moduli spaces of (parabolic) Higgs bundles on Riemann surfaces. In the case of Hitchin spaces the evaluation of the volume reduces to a summation over solutions of Bethe Ansatz equations for the non-linear Schr?dinger system. We discuss some applications of our results. Received: 2 May 1999/ Accepted: 16 July 1999     

Bundle gerbes and moduli spaces

In this paper, we construct the index bundle gerbe of a family of self-adjoint Dirac-type operators, refining a construction of Segal. In a special case, we construct a geometric bundle gerbe called the caloron bundle gerbe, which comes with a natural connection and curving, and show that it is isomorphic to the analytically constructed index bundle gerbe. We apply these constructions to certain moduli spaces associated to compact Riemann surfaces, constructing on these moduli spaces, natural bundle gerbes with connection and curving, whose 3-curvature represent Dixmier-Douady classes that are generators of the third de Rham cohomology groups of these moduli spaces.     

Moduli Spaces of Instantons on the Taub-NUT Space

We present ADHM-Nahm data for instantons on the Taub-NUT space and encode these data in terms of Bow Diagrams. We study the moduli spaces of the instantons and present these spaces as finite hyperkähler quotients. As an example, we find an explicit expression for the metric on the moduli space of one SU(2) instanton.We motivate our construction by identifying a corresponding string theory brane configuration. By following string theory dualities we are led to supersymmetric gauge theories with impurities.     

Lie algebroids,Lie groupoids and TFT

We construct the moduli spaces associated to the solutions of equations of motion (modulo gauge transformations) of the Poisson sigma model with target being an integrable Poisson manifold. The construction can be easily extended to a case of a generic integrable Lie algebroid. Indeed for any Lie algebroid one can associate a BF-like topological field theory which localizes on the space of algebroid morphisms, that can be seen as a generalization of flat connections to the groupoid case. We discuss the finite gauge transformations and discuss the corresponding moduli spaces. We consider the theories both without and with boundaries.     

Three Applications of Instanton Numbers

We use instanton numbers to: (i) stratify moduli of vector bundles, (ii) calculate relative homology of moduli spaces and (iii) distinguish curve singularities. The authors acknowledge support from NSF and NSF/NMSU Advance.     

Grassmannian and String Theory

The infinite-dimensional Grassmannian manifold contains moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces of all genera. This well known fact leads to a conjecture that non-perturbative string theory can be formulated in terms of the Grassmannian. We present new facts supporting this hypothesis. In particular, it is shown that Grassmannians can be considered as generalized moduli spaces; this statement permits us to define corresponding “string amplitudes” (at least formally). One can conjecture that it is possible to explain the relation between non-perturbative and perturbative string theory by means of localization theorems for equivariant cohomology; this conjecture is based on the characterization of moduli spaces, relevant to string theory, as sets consisting of points with large stabilizers in certain groups acting on the Grassmannian. We describe an involution on the Grassmannian that could be related to S-duality in string theory. Received: 19 December 1996 / Accepted: 27 March 1998     

Massless D-Branes on Calabi–Yau Threefolds and Monodromy

We analyze the link between the occurrence of massless B-type D-branes for specific values of moduli and monodromy around such points in the moduli space. This allows us to propose a classification of all massless B-type D-branes at any point in the moduli space of Calabi–Yau’s. This classification then justifies a previous conjecture due to Horja for the general form of monodromy. Our analysis is based on using monodromies around points in moduli space where a single D-brane becomes massless to generate monodromies around points where an infinite number become massless. We discuss the various possibilities within the classification.     

Instanton strings and hyper-Kähler geometry

We discuss two-dimensional sigma models on moduli spaces of instantons on K3 surfaces. These N = (4, 4) superconformal field theories describe the near-horizon dynamics of the D1-D5-brane system and are dual to string theory on AdS³. We derive a precise map relating the moduli of the K3 type 1113 string compactification to the moduli of these conformal field theories and the corresponding classical hyper-Kahler geometry. We conclude that in the absence of background gauge fields, the metric on the instanton moduli spaces degenerates exactly to the orbifold symmetric product of K3. Turning on a self-dual NS B-field deforms this symmetric product to a manifold that is diffeomorphic to the Hilbert scheme. We also comment on the mathematical applications of string duality to the global issues of deformations of hyper-Kähler manifolds.     

Determinant bundles and Virasoro algebras

We consider the interplay of infinite-dimensional Lie algebras of Virasoro type and moduli spaces of curves, suggested by string theory. We will see that the infinitesimal geometry of determinant bundles is governed by Virasoro symmetries. The Mumford forms are just invariants of these symmetries. The representations of Virasoro algebra define (twisted)D-modules on moduli spaces; theseD-modules are equations on correlators in conformal field theory.To the memory of Vadik Knizhnik (20. 2. 1962–25. 12. 1987)