We generalize the works of Pappas–Rapoport–Zhu on twisted affine Grassmannians to the wildly ramified case under mild assumptions. This rests on a construction of certain smooth affine $\mathbb {Z}[t]$ -groups with connected fibers of parahoric type, motivated by previous work of Tits. The resulting $\mathbb {F}_p(t)$ -groups are pseudo-reductive and sometimes non-standard in the sense of Conrad–Gabber–Prasad, and their $\mathbb {F}_p [\hspace {-0,5mm}[ {t} ]\hspace {-0,5mm}] $ -models are parahoric in a generalized sense. We study their affine Grassmannians, proving normality of Schubert varieties and Zhu’s coherence theorem.

A Richardson variety in a flag variety is an intersection of two Schubert varieties defined by transverse flags. We define and study relative Richardson varieties, which are defined over a base scheme with a vector bundle and two flags. To do so, we generalise transversality of flags to a relative notion, versality, that allows the flags to be non-transverse over some fibers. Relative Richardson varieties share many of the geometric properties of Richardson varieties. We generalise several geometric and cohomological facts about Richardson varieties to relative Richardson varieties. We also prove that the local geometry of a relative Richardson variety is governed, in a precise sense, by the two intersecting Schubert varieties, giving a generalisation, in the flag variety case, of a theorem of Knutson–Woo–Yong; we also generalise this result to intersections of arbitrarily many relative Schubert varieties. We give an application to Brill–Noether varieties on elliptic curves, and a conjectural generalisation to higher genus curves.

We introduce a conjecture on Virasoro constraints for the moduli space of stable sheaves on a smooth projective surface. These generalise the Virasoro constraints on the Hilbert scheme of a surface found by Moreira and Moreira, Oblomkov, Okounkov and Pandharipande. We verify the conjecture in many nontrivial cases by using a combinatorial description of equivariant sheaves found by Klyachko.

In this work, we prove a version of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem for quadratic polynomials that takes us one step closer to obtaining a deterministic polynomial time algorithm for testing zeroness of $\Sigma ^{[3]}\Pi \Sigma \Pi ^{[2]}$ circuits. Specifically, we prove that, if a finite set of irreducible quadratic polynomials ${\mathcal {Q}}$ satisfies that for every two polynomials $Q_1,Q_2\in {\mathcal {Q}}$ there is a subset ${\mathcal {K}}\subset {\mathcal {Q}}$ such that $Q_1,Q_2 \notin {\mathcal {K}}$ and whenever $Q_1$ and $Q_2$ vanish, then $\prod _{i\in {\mathcal {K}}} Q_i$ vanishes, then the linear span of the polynomials in ${\mathcal {Q}}$ has dimension $O(1)$ . This extends the earlier result [21] that holds for the case $|{\mathcal {K}}| = 1$ .

The most fundamental example of mirror symmetry compares the Fermat hypersurfaces in $\mathbb {P}^n$ and $\mathbb {P}^n/G$ , where G is a finite group that acts on $\mathbb {P}^n$ and preserves the Fermat hypersurface. We generalize this to hypersurfaces in Grassmannians, where the picture is richer and more complex. There is a finite group G that acts on the Grassmannian $\operatorname {{\mathrm {Gr}}}(n,r)$ and preserves an appropriate Calabi–Yau hypersurface. We establish how mirror symmetry, toric degenerations, blow-ups and variation of GIT relate the Calabi–Yau hypersurfaces inside $\operatorname {{\mathrm {Gr}}}(n,r)$ and $\operatorname {{\mathrm {Gr}}}(n,r)/G$ . This allows us to describe a compactification of the Eguchi–Hori–Xiong mirror to the Grassmannian, inside a blow-up of the quotient of the Grassmannian by G.

We give an upper bound on the volume $\operatorname {vol}(P^*)$ of a polytope $P^*$ dual to a d-dimensional lattice polytope P with exactly one interior lattice point in each dimension d. This bound, expressed in terms of the Sylvester sequence, is sharp and achieved by the dual to a particular reflexive simplex. Our result implies a sharp upper bound on the volume of a d-dimensional reflexive polytope. Translated into toric geometry, this gives a sharp upper bound on the anti-canonical degree $(-K_X)^d$ of a d-dimensional Fano toric variety X with at worst canonical singularities.

It is well known that the diffeomorphism type of the Milnor fibration of a (Newton) nondegenerate polynomial function f is uniquely determined by the Newton boundary of f. In the present paper, we generalize this result to certain degenerate functions, namely we show that the diffeomorphism type of the Milnor fibration of a (possibly degenerate) polynomial function of the form $f=f^1\cdots f^{k_0}$ is uniquely determined by the Newton boundaries of $f^1,\ldots , f^{k_0}$ if $\{f^{k_1}=\cdots =f^{k_m}=0\}$ is a nondegenerate complete intersection variety for any $k_1,\ldots ,k_m\in \{1,\ldots , k_0\}$ .

A famous problem in birational geometry is to determine when the birational automorphism group of a Fano variety is finite. The Noether–Fano method has been the main approach to this problem. The purpose of this paper is to give a new approach to the problem by showing that in every positive characteristic, there are Fano varieties of arbitrarily large index with finite (or even trivial) birational automorphism group. To do this, we prove that these varieties admit ample and birationally equivariant line bundles. Our result applies the differential forms that Kollár produces on $p$-cyclic covers in characteristic $p > 0$.

We study open-closed orbifold Gromov-Witten invariants of 3-dimensional Calabi-Yau smooth toric Deligne-Mumford stacks (with possibly nontrivial generic stabilisers K and semi-projective coarse moduli spaces) relative to Lagrangian branes of Aganagic-Vafa type. An Aganagic-Vafa brane in this paper is a possibly ineffective $C^\infty $ orbifold that admits a presentation $[(S^1\times \mathbb {R} ^2)/G_\tau ]$ , where $G_\tau $ is a finite abelian group containing K and $G_\tau /K \cong \boldsymbol {\mu }_{\mathfrak {m}}$ is cyclic of some order $\mathfrak {m}\in \mathbb {Z} _{>0}$ .

1. 1. We present foundational materials of enumerative geometry of stable holomorphic maps from bordered orbifold Riemann surfaces to a 3-dimensional Calabi-Yau smooth toric DM stack $\mathcal {X}$ with boundaries mapped into an Aganagic-Vafa brane $\mathcal {L}$ . All genus open-closed Gromov-Witten invariants of $\mathcal {X}$ relative to $\mathcal {L}$ are defined by torus localisation and depend on the choice of a framing $f\in \mathbb {Z} $ of $\mathcal {L}$ .

2. 2. We provide another definition of all genus open-closed Gromov-Witten invariants in (1) based on algebraic relative orbifold Gromov-Witten theory, which agrees with the definition in (1) up to a sign depending on the choice of orientation on moduli of maps in (1). This generalises the definition in [57] for smooth toric Calabi-Yau 3-folds and specifies an orientation on moduli of maps in (1) compatible with the canonical orientation on moduli of relative stable maps determined by the complex structure.

3. 3. When $\mathcal {X}$ is a toric Calabi-Yau 3-orbifold (i.e., when the generic stabiliser K is trivial), so that $G_\tau =\boldsymbol {\mu }_{\mathfrak {m}}$ , we define generating functions $F_{g,h}^{\mathcal {X},(\mathcal {L},f)}$ of open-closed Gromov-Witten invariants of arbitrary genus g and number h of boundary circles; it takes values in $H^*_{ {\mathrm {CR}} }(\mathcal {B} \boldsymbol {\mu }_{\mathfrak {m}}; \mathbb {C} )^{\otimes h}$ , where $H^*_{ {\mathrm {CR}} }(\mathcal {B} \boldsymbol {\mu }_{\mathfrak {m}}; \mathbb {C} )\cong \mathbb {C} ^{\mathfrak {m}}$ is the Chen-Ruan orbifold cohomology of the classifying space $\mathcal {B} \boldsymbol {\mu }_{\mathfrak {m}}$ of $\boldsymbol {\mu }_{\mathfrak {m}}$ .

4. 4. We prove an open mirror theorem that relates the generating function $F_{0,1}^{\mathcal {X},(\mathcal {L},f)}$ of orbifold disk invariants to Abel-Jacobi maps of the mirror curve of $\mathcal {X}$ . This generalises a conjecture by Aganagic-Vafa [6] and Aganagic-Klemm-Vafa [5] (proved in full generality by the first and the second authors in [33]) on the disk potential of a smooth semi-projective toric Calabi-Yau 3-fold.

We show that the dimer algebra of a connected Postnikov diagram in the disc is bimodule internally $3$ -Calabi–Yau in the sense of the author’s earlier work [43]. As a consequence, we obtain an additive categorification of the cluster algebra associated to the diagram, which (after inverting frozen variables) is isomorphic to the homogeneous coordinate ring of a positroid variety in the Grassmannian by a recent result of Galashin and Lam [18]. We show that our categorification can be realised as a full extension closed subcategory of Jensen–King–Su’s Grassmannian cluster category [28], in a way compatible with their bijection between rank $1$ modules and Plücker coordinates.

We propose a conjectural list of Fano manifolds of Picard number $1$ with pseudoeffective normalised tangent bundles, which we prove in various situations by relating it to the complete divisibility conjecture of Francesco Russo and Fyodor L. Zak on varieties with small codegree. Furthermore, the pseudoeffective thresholds and, hence, the pseudoeffective cones of the projectivised tangent bundles of rational homogeneous spaces of Picard number $1$ are explicitly determined by studying the total dual variety of minimal rational tangents (VMRTs) and the geometry of stratified Mukai flops. As a by-product, we obtain sharp vanishing theorems on the global twisted symmetric holomorphic vector fields on rational homogeneous spaces of Picard number $1$ .

Topological complexity naturally appears in the motion planning in robotics. In this paper we consider the problem of finding topological complexity of real Grassmann manifolds $G_k(\mathbb {R}^{n})$. We use cohomology methods to give estimates on the zero-divisor cup-length of $G_k(\mathbb {R}^{n})$ for various $2\leqslant k< n$, which in turn give us lower bounds on topological complexity. Our results correct and improve several results from Pavešić (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb. A 151 (2021), 2013–2029).

The Grothendieck–Serre conjecture predicts that every generically trivial torsor under a reductive group scheme G over a regular local ring R is trivial. We settle it in the case when G is quasi-split and R is unramified. Some of the techniques that allow us to overcome obstacles that have so far kept the mixed characteristic case out of reach include a version of Noether normalization over discrete valuation rings, as well as a suitable presentation lemma for smooth relative curves in mixed characteristic that facilitates passage to the relative affine line via excision and patching.

Let X be a smooth proper variety over a field k and suppose that the degree map ${\mathrm {CH}}_0(X \otimes _k K) \to \mathbb {Z}$ is isomorphic for any field extension $K/k$. We show that $G(\operatorname {Spec} k) \to G(X)$ is an isomorphism for any $\mathbb {P}^1$-invariant Nisnevich sheaf with transfers G. This generalises a result of Binda, Rülling and Saito that proves the same conclusion for reciprocity sheaves. We also give a direct proof of the fact that the unramified logarithmic Hodge–Witt cohomology is a $\mathbb {P}^1$-invariant Nisnevich sheaf with transfers.

We propose a conjectural framework for computing Gorenstein measures and stringy Hodge numbers in terms of motivic integration over arcs of smooth Artin stacks, and we verify this framework in the case of fantastacks, which are certain toric Artin stacks that provide (nonseparated) resolutions of singularities for toric varieties. Specifically, let $\mathcal {X}$ be a smooth Artin stack admitting a good moduli space $\pi : \mathcal {X} \to X$ , and assume that X is a variety with log-terminal singularities, $\pi $ induces an isomorphism over a nonempty open subset of X and the exceptional locus of $\pi $ has codimension at least $2$ . We conjecture a change-of-variables formula relating the motivic measure for $\mathcal {X}$ to the Gorenstein measure for X and functions measuring the degree to which $\pi $ is nonseparated. We also conjecture that if the stabilisers of $\mathcal {X}$ are special groups in the sense of Serre, then almost all arcs of X lift to arcs of $\mathcal {X}$ , and we explain how in this case (assuming a finiteness hypothesis satisfied by fantastacks) our conjectures imply a formula for the stringy Hodge numbers of X in terms of a certain motivic integral over the arcs of $\mathcal {X}$ . We prove these conjectures in the case where $\mathcal {X}$ is a fantastack.

We explicate the combinatorial/geometric ingredients of Arthur’s proof of the convergence and polynomiality, in a truncation parameter, of his noninvariant trace formula. Starting with a fan in a real, finite dimensional, vector space and a collection of functions, one for each cone in the fan, we introduce a combinatorial truncated function with respect to a polytope normal to the fan and prove the analogues of Arthur’s results on the convergence and polynomiality of the integral of this truncated function over the vector space. The convergence statements clarify the important role of certain combinatorial subsets that appear in Arthur’s work and provide a crucial partition that amounts to a so-called nearest face partition. The polynomiality statements can be thought of as far reaching extensions of the Ehrhart polynomial. Our proof of polynomiality relies on the Lawrence–Varchenko conical decomposition and readily implies an extension of the well-known combinatorial lemma of Langlands. The Khovanskii–Pukhlikov virtual polytopes are an important ingredient here. Finally, we give some geometric interpretations of our combinatorial truncation on toric varieties as a measure and a Lefschetz number.

Let G be a simple complex algebraic group, and let $K \subset G$ be a reductive subgroup such that the coordinate ring of $G/K$ is a multiplicity-free G-module. We consider the G-algebra structure of $\mathbb C[G/K]$ and study the decomposition into irreducible summands of the product of irreducible G-submodules in $\mathbb C[G/K]$ . When the spherical roots of $G/K$ generate a root system of type $\mathsf A$ , we propose a conjectural decomposition rule, which relies on a conjecture of Stanley on the multiplication of Jack symmetric functions. With the exception of one case, we show that the rule holds true whenever the root system generated by the spherical roots of $G/K$ is a direct sum of subsystems of rank 1.

We explain an algorithm to calculate Arthur’s weighted orbital integral in terms of the number of rational points on the fundamental domain of the associated affine Springer fiber. The strategy is to count the number of rational points of the truncated affine Springer fibers in two ways: by the Arthur–Kottwitz reduction and by the Harder–Narasimhan reduction. A comparison of results obtained from these two approaches gives recurrence relations between the number of rational points on the fundamental domains of the affine Springer fibers and Arthur’s weighted orbital integrals. As an example, we calculate Arthur’s weighted orbital integrals for the groups ${\textrm {GL}}_{2}$ and ${\textrm {GL}}_{3}$ .

Geometric vertex decomposition and liaison are two frameworks that have been used to produce similar results about similar families of algebraic varieties. In this paper, we establish an explicit connection between these approaches. In particular, we show that each geometrically vertex decomposable ideal is linked by a sequence of elementary G-biliaisons of height $1$ to an ideal of indeterminates and, conversely, that every G-biliaison of a certain type gives rise to a geometric vertex decomposition. As a consequence, we can immediately conclude that several well-known families of ideals are glicci, including Schubert determinantal ideals, defining ideals of varieties of complexes and defining ideals of graded lower bound cluster algebras.

We compare the $K$-theory stable bases of the Springer resolution associated to different affine Weyl alcoves. We prove that (up to relabelling) the change of alcoves operators are given by the Demazure–Lusztig operators in the affine Hecke algebra. We then show that these bases are categorified by the Verma modules of the Lie algebra, under the localization of Lie algebras in positive characteristic of Bezrukavnikov, Mirković, and Rumynin. As an application, we prove that the wall-crossing matrices of the $K$-theory stable bases coincide with the monodromy matrices of the quantum cohomology of the Springer resolution.