The main topic of this thesis is the tropicalizations of Severi varieties, which we call tropical Severi varieties. Severi varieties are classical objects in algebraic geometry. They are parameter spaces of plane nodal curves. On the other hand, tropicalization is an operation defined in tropical geometry, which turns subvarieties of an algebraic torus into certain polyhedral objects in real vector spaces. By studying the tropicalizations, it may be possible to transform algebro-geometric problems into purely combinatorial ones. Thus, it is a natural question, “what are tropical Severi varieties?” In this thesis, we give a partial answer to this question: we obtain a description of tropical Severi varieties in terms of regular subdivisions of polygons. Given a regular subdivision of a convex lattice polygon, we construct an explicit parameter space of plane curves. This parameter space is a much simpler object than the corresponding Severi variety and it is closely related to a flat degeneration of the Severi variety, which in turn describes the tropical Severi variety. We present two applications. First, we understand G.Mikhalkin’s correspondence theorem for the degrees of Severi varieties in terms of tropical intersection theory. In particular, this provides a proof of the independence of point-configurations in the enumeration of tropical nodal curves. The second application is about Secondary fans. Secondary fans are purely combinatorial objects which parameterize all the regular subdivisions of polygons. We provide a relation between tropical Severi varieties and Secondary fans.

The following is my M.Sc. thesis on moduli space techniques in algebraic and symplectic geometry. It is divided into the following two parts: the rst part is devoted to presenting moduli problems in algebraic geometry using a modern perspective, via the language of stacks and the second part is devoted to studying moduli problems from the perspective of symplectic geometry. The key motivation to the rst part is to present the theorem of Keel and Mori [20] which answers the classical question of under what circumstances a quotient exists for the action of an algebraic group G acting on a scheme X. Part two of the thesis is a more elaborate description of the topics found in Chapter 8 of [28].

The following is my M.Sc. thesis on moduli space techniques in algebraic and symplectic geometry. It is divided into the following two parts: the rst part is devoted to presenting moduli problems in algebraic geometry using a modern perspective, via the language of stacks and the second part is devoted to studying moduli problems from the perspective of symplectic geometry. The key motivation to the rst part is to present the theorem of Keel and Mori [20] which answers the classical question of under what circumstances a quotient exists for the action of an algebraic group G acting on a scheme X. Part two of the thesis is a more elaborate description of the topics found in Chapter 8 of [28].

The cubic focusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation is a canonical model equation that arises in physics and engineering, particularly in nonlinear optics and plasma physics. Cubic NLS is an accessible venue to refine techniques for more general nonlinear partial differential equations. In this thesis, it is shown there exist solutions to the focusing cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation in three dimensions that blowup on a circle, in the sense of L2-norm concentration on a ring, bounded H1-norm outside any surrounding toroid, and growth of the global H1-norm with the log-log rate. Analogous behaviour occurs in higher dimensions. That is, there exists data for which the corresponding evolution by the cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation explodes on a set of co-dimension two. To simplify the exposition, the proof is presented in dimension three, with remarks to indicate the adaptations in higher dimension.

Pars 1 and 2 are devoted to study of solutions of certain differential inequalities. Namely, in Part 1 we show that a germ of an analytic set (real or complex) admits a Gagliardo-Nirenberg type inequality with a certain exponent s>=1. At a regular point s=1, and the inequality becomes classical. As our examples show, s can be strictly greater than 1 even for an isolated singularity. In Part 2 we prove the property of unique continuation for solutions of differential inequality |\Delta u|<=|Vu| for a large class of potentials V. This result can be applied to the problem of absence of positive eigenvalues for self-adjoint Schroedinger operator -\Delta+V defined in the sense of the form sum. The results of Part 2 are joint with Leonid Shartser. In Parts 3 and 4 we derive the basic elements of complex function theory within some subalgebras of holomorphic functions (including extension from submanifolds, corona type theorem, properties of divisors, approximation property). Our key instruments and results are the analogues of Cartan theorems A and B for the `coherent sheaves' on the maximal ideal spaces of these subalgebras, and of Oka-Cartan theorem on coherence of the sheaves of ideals of the corresponding complex analytic subsets. More precisely, in Part 3 we consider the algebras of holomorphic functions on regular coverings of complex manifolds whose restrictions to each fiber belong to a translation-invariant Banach subalgebra of bounded functions endowed with sup-norm. The model examples of such subalgebras are Bohr's holomorphic almost periodic functions on tube domains, and all fibrewise bounded holomorphic functions on regular coverings of complex manifolds. In Part 4 the primary object of study is the subalgebra of bounded holomorphic functions on the unit disk whose moduli can have only boundary discontinuities of the first kind. The results of Parts 3 and 4 are joint with Alexander Brudnyi.

In this thesis we extend Lerman’s cutting construction to spin-c structures. Every spin-c structure on an even-dimensional Riemannian manifold gives rise to a Dirac operator D+ acting on sections of the associated spinor bundle. The spin-c quantization of a spin-c manifold is defined to be ker(D+)−coker(D+). It is a virtual vector space, and in the presence of a Lie group action, it is a virtual representation. In 2004, Guillemin et al defined signature quantization and showed that it is additive under cutting. We prove that the spin-c quantization of an S^1-manifold is also additive under cutting. Our proof uses the method of localization, i.e., we express the spin-c quantization of a manifold in terms of local data near connected components of the fixed point set. For a symplectic manifold (M,ω), a spin-c prequantization is a spin-c structure together with a connection compatible with ω. We explain how one can cut a spin-c prequantization and show that the choice of a spin-c structure on the complex plane (which is part of the cutting process) must be compatible with the moment level set along which the cutting is performed. Finally, we prove that the spin-c and metaplectic-c groups satisfy a universal property: Every structure that makes the construction of a spinor bundle possible must factor uniquely through a spin-c structure in the Riemannian case, or through a metaplectic-c structure in the symplectic case.

This thesis is devoted to subriemannian optimal transportation problems. In the first part of the thesis, we consider cost functions arising from very general optimal control costs. We prove the existence and uniqueness of an optimal map between two given measures under certain regularity and growth assumptions on the Lagrangian, absolute continuity of the measures with respect to the Lebesgue class, and, most importantly, the absence of sharp abnormal minimizers. In particular, this result is applicable in the case where the cost function is square of the subriemannian distance on a subriemannian manifold with a 2-generating distribution. This unifies and generalizes the corresponding Riemannian and subriemannian results of Brenier, McCann, Ambrosio-Rigot and Bernard-Buffoni. We also establish various properties of the optimal plan when abnormal minimizers are present. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the infinite-dimensional geometry of optimal transportation on a subriemannian manifold. We start by proving the following nonholonomic version of the classical Moser theorem: given a bracket-generating distribution on a connected compact manifold (possibly with boundary), two volume forms of equal total volume can be isotoped by the flow of a vector field tangent to this distribution. Next, we describe formal solutions of the corresponding subriemannian optimal transportation problem and present the Hamiltonian framework for both the Otto calculus and its subriemannian counterpart as infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian reductions on diffeomorphism groups. Finally, we define a subriemannian analog of the Wasserstein metric on the space of densities and prove that the subriemannian heat equation defines a gradient flow on the subriemannian Wasserstein space with the potential given by the Boltzmann relative entropy functional. Measure contraction property is one of the possible generalizations of Ricci curvature bound to more general metric measure spaces. In the third part of the thesis, we discuss when a three dimensional contact subriemannian manifold satisfies such property.

In this dissertation, we employ variational methods to obtain a new existence result for solutions of a Ginzburg-Landau type equation on a Riemannian manifold. We prove that if $N$ is a compact, orientable 3-dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary and $\gamma$ is a simple, smooth, connected, closed geodesic in $N$ satisfying a natural nondegeneracy condition, then for every $\ep>0$ sufficiently small, $\exists$ a critical point $u^\ep\in H^1(N;\mathbb{C})$ of the Ginzburg-Landau functional \bd\ds E^\ep(u):=\frac{1}{2\pi |\ln\ep|}\int_N |\nabla u|^2+\frac{(|u|^2-1)^2}{2\ep^2}\ed and these critical points have the property that $E^\ep(u^\ep)\rightarrow\tx{length}(\gamma)$ as $\ep\rightarrow 0$. To accomplish this, we appeal to a recent general asymptotic minmax theorem which basically says that if $E^\ep$ $\Gamma$-converges to $E$ (not necessarily defined on the same Banach space as $E^\ep$), $v$ is a saddle point of $E$ and some additional mild hypotheses are met, then there exists $\ep_0>0$ such that for every $\ep\in(0,\ep_0),E^\ep$ possesses a critical point $u^\ep$ and $\lim_{\ep\rightarrow 0}E^\ep(u^\ep)=E(v)$. Typically, $E$ is only lower semicontinuous, therefore a suitable notion of saddle point is needed. Using known results on $\mathbb{R}^3$, we show the Ginzburg-Landau functional $E^\ep$ defined above $\Gamma$-converges to a functional $E$ which can be thought of as measuring the arclength of a limiting singular set. Also, we verify using regularity theory for almost-minimal currents that $\gamma$ is a saddle point of $E$ in an appropriate sense.

If a partially hyperbolic diffeomorphism on a torus of dimension d greater than 3 has stable and unstable foliations which are quasi-isometric on the universal cover, and its center direction is one-dimensional, then the diffeomorphism is leaf conjugate to a linear toral automorphism. In other words, the hyperbolic structure of the diffeomorphism is exactly that of a linear, and thus simple to understand, example. In particular, every partially hyperbolic diffeomorphism on the 3-torus is leaf conjugate to a linear toral automorphism.

The multivariable Alexander polynomial (MVA) is a classical invariant of knots and links. We give an extension to regular virtual knots which has simple versions of many of the relations known to hold for the classical invariant. By following the previous proofs that the MVA is of finite type we give a new definition for its weight system which can be computed as the determinant of a matrix created from local information. This is an improvement on previous definitions as it is directly computable (not defined recursively) and is computable in polynomial time. We also show that our extension to virtual knots is a finite type invariant of virtual knots. We further explore how the multivariable Alexander polynomial takes local information and packages it together to form a global knot invariant, which leads us to an extension to tangles. To define this invariant we use so-called circuit algebras, an extension of planar algebras which are the `right' setting to discuss virtual knots. Our tangle invariant is a circuit algebra morphism, and so behaves well under tangle operations and gives yet another definition for the Alexander polynomial. The MVA and the single variable Alexander polynomial are known to satisfy a number of relations, each of which has a proof relying on different approaches and techniques. Using our invariant we can give simple computational proofs of many of these relations, as well as an alternate proof that the MVA and our virtual extension are of finite type.