<p>The Torelli group Tg of a closed orientable surface Sg of genus g >1 is the group</p><p>of isotopy classes of orientation-preserving diffeomorphisms of Sg which act trivially</p><p>on its first integral homology. The hyperelliptic Torelli group TDg is the subgroup</p><p>of Tg whose elements commute with a fixed hyperelliptic involution. The finiteness</p><p>properties of Tg and TDg are not well-understood when g > 2. In particular, it is not</p><p>known if T3 is finitely presented or if TD3 is finitely generated. In this thesis, we begin</p><p>a study of the finiteness properties of genus 3 Torelli groups using techniques from</p><p>complex analytic geometry. The Torelli space T3 is the moduli space of non-singular</p><p>genus 3 curves equipped with a symplectic basis for the first integral homology and is</p><p>a model of the classifying space of T. Each component of the hyperelliptic locus T hyp 3</p><p>in T3 is a model of the classifying space for TD3. We will investigate the topology</p><p>of the zero loci of certain theta functions and thetanulls and explain how these are</p><p>related to the topology of T3 and T3 hyp. We show that the zero locus in h 2 x C2 </p><p>of any genus 2 theta function is isomorphic to the universal cover of the universal framed genus 2 curve of compact type and that it is homotopy equivalent to an infinite bouquet of 2-spheres. We also derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the zero locus of any genus 3 even thetanull to be homotopy equivalent to a bouquet of 2-spheres and 3-spheres.</p> / Dissertation

No description available.

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the geometry of spaces of planar quadrilaterals. The topology of moduli spaces of planar quadrilaterals (the set of all distinct planar quadrilaterals with fixed side lengths) has been well-studied [5], [8], [10]. The symplectic geometry of these spaces has been studied by Kapovich and Millson [6], but the Riemannian geometry of these spaces has not been thoroughly examined. We study paths in the moduli space and the pre-moduli space. We compare intraplanar paths between points in the moduli space to extraplanar paths between those same points. We give conditions on side lengths to guarantee that intraplanar motion is shorter between some points. Direct applications of this result could be applied to motion-planning of a robot arm. We show that horizontal lifts to the pre-moduli space of paths in the moduli space can exhibit holonomy. We determine exactly which collections of side lengths allow holonomy. / Ph. D.

No description available.

We construct several modular compactifications of the Hurwitz space \(H^d_{g/h}\) of genus g curves expressed as d-sheeted, simply branched covers of genus h curves. They are obtained by allowing the branch points of the cover to collide to a variable extent, generalizing the spaces of twisted admissible covers of Abramovich, Corti, and Vistoli. The resulting spaces are very well-behaved if d is small or if relatively few collisions are allowed. In particular, for d = 2 and 3, they are always well-behaved. For d = 2, we recover the spaces of hyperelliptic curves of Fedorchuk. For d = 3, we obtain new birational models of the space of triple covers. We describe in detail the birational geometry of the spaces of triple covers of \(P^1\) with a marked fiber. In this case, we obtain a sequence of birational models that begins with the space of marked (twisted) admissible covers and proceeds through the following transformations: (1) sequential contractions of the boundary divisors, (2) contraction of the hyperelliptic divisor, (3) sequential flips of the higher Maroni loci, (4) contraction of the Maroni divisor (for even g). The sequence culminates in a Fano variety in the case of even g, which we describe explicitly, and a variety fibered over \(P^1\) with Fano fibers in the case of odd g. / Mathematics

Let Md be the moduli space of algebraic maps (morphisms) of degree d from P^1 to a fixed Grassmannian. The main purpose of this thesis is to provide an explicit construction of a compactification of Md satisfying the following property: the compactification is a smooth projective variety and the boundary is a simple normal crossing divisor. The main tool of the construction is blowing-up. We start with a smooth compactification given by Quot scheme, which we denote by Qd. The boundary Qd\Md is singular and of high codimension. Next, we give a filtration of the boundary Qd\Md by closed subschemes: Zd,0 subset Zd,1 subset ... Zd,d-1=Qd\Md. Then we blow up the Quot scheme Qd along these subschemes succesively, and prove that the final outcome is a compactification satisfying the desired properties. The proof is based on the key observation that each Zd,r has a smooth projective variety which maps birationally onto it. This smooth projective variety, denoted by Qd,r, is a relative Quot scheme over the Quot-scheme compactification Qr for Mr. The map from Qd,r to Zd,r is an isomorphism when restricted to the preimage of Zd,r\ Zd,r-1. With the help of the Qd,r's, one can show that the final outcome of the successive blowing-up is a smooth compactification whose boundary is a simple normal crossing divisor.

A genus-two Riemann surface admits a canonical decomposition into Dirichlet polygons determined by its six Weierstrass points. All possible associated graphs are determined explicitly from circle packing problems, solved by systems of linear inequalities whose solutions determine a finite 6-dimensional polyhedral complex in 12-dimensional space. The 6-dimensional Moduli Space of genus-two Riemann surfaces inherits a canonical explicit decomposition into Euclidean polyhedra, giving new natural coordinates for the Teichmuller Space of all possible constant curvature geometries on a marked genus-two surface.

In this thesis we investigate wall-crossing phenomena in the stability manifold of an irreducible principally polarized abelian surface for objects with the same invariants as (twists of) ideal sheaves of points. In particular, we construct a sequence of fine moduli spaces which are related by Mukai flops and observe that the stability of these objects is completely determined by the configuration of points. Finally, we use Fourier-Mukai theory to show that these moduli are projective.

This thesis is mainly concerned with the study of hypersymplectic structures in gauge theory. These structures arise via applications of the hypersymplectic quotient construction to the action of the gauge group on certain spaces of connections and Higgs fields. Motivated by Kobayashi-Hitchin correspondences in the case of hyperkähler moduli spaces, we first study the relationship between hypersymplectic, complex and paracomplex quotients in the spirit of Kirwan's work relating Kähler quotients to GIT quotients. We then study dimensional reductions of the ASD equations on $mathbb R^{2,2}$. We discuss a version of twistor theory for hypersymplectic manifolds, which we use to put the ASD equations into Lax form. Next, we study Schmid's equations from the viewpoint of hypersymplectic quotients and examine the local product structure of the moduli space. Then we turn towards the integrability aspects of this system. We deduce various properties of the spectral curve associated to a solution and provide explicit solutions with cyclic symmetry. Hitchin's harmonic map equations are the split signature analogue of the self-duality equations on a Riemann surface, in which case it is known that there is a smooth hyperkähler moduli space. In the case at hand, we cannot expect to obtain a globally well-behaved moduli space. However, we are able to construct a smooth open set of solutions with small Higgs field, on which we then analyse the hypersymplectic geometry. In particular, we exhibit the local product structures and the family of complex structures. This is done by interpreting the equations as describing certain geodesics on the moduli space of unitary connections. Using this picture we relate the degeneracy locus to geodesics with conjugate endpoints. Finally, we present a split signature version of the ADHM construction for so-called split signature instantons on $S^2 imes S^2$, which can be given an interpretation as a hypersymplectic quotient.

We construct a deformation quantization on an infinite-dimensional symplectic space of regular connections on an SU(2)-bundle over a Riemannian surface of genus g ≥ 2. The construction is based on the normal form thoerem representing the space of connections as a fibration over a finite-dimensional moduli space of flat connections whose fibre is a cotangent bundle of the infinite-dimensional gauge group. We study the reduction with respect to the gauge groupe both for classical and quantum cases and show that our quantization commutes with reduction.