Algebra and Algebraic Geometry Seminar Fall 2020: Difference between revisions

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The Virtual Seminar will take place on Fridays at 2:30 pm via Zoom. We will also link to relevant or interesting Zoom talks outside of the seminar.
The Virtual Seminar will take place on Fridays at 2:30 pm via Zoom. We will also link to relevant or interesting Zoom talks outside of the seminar. The link to the Spring 2021 seminar is here: [https://www.math.wisc.edu/wiki/index.php/Algebra_and_Algebraic_Geometry_Seminar_Spring_2021 Spring 2021 Seminar]


==Algebra and Algebraic Geometry Mailing List==
==Algebra and Algebraic Geometry Mailing List==
*Please join the [https://admin.lists.wisc.edu/index.php?p=11&l=ags AGS Mailing List] to hear about upcoming seminars, lunches, and other algebraic geometry events in the department  (it is possible you must be on a math department computer to use this link).
*Please join the AGS mailing list by sending an email to ags+join@g-groups.wisc.edu to hear about upcoming seminars, lunches, and other algebraic geometry events in the department  (it is possible you must be on a math department computer to use this link).


== COVID-19 Update ==
== COVID-19 Update ==
As a result of Covid-19, the seminar for this semester will be held virtually.
As a result of Covid-19, the seminar for this semester will be held virtually. The default Zoom link for the seminar is https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 (sometimes
we will have to use a different meeting link, if Michael K cannot host that day).


== Fall 2020 Schedule ==
== Fall 2020 Schedule ==
Line 13: Line 14:
!align="left" | speaker
!align="left" | speaker
!align="left" | title
!align="left" | title
!align="left" | host(s)
!align="left" | link to talk
|-
|-
|September 14
|September 14 @ 10am
|[http://www.math.wisc.edu/~andreic/ Andrei Căldăraru (Madison)]
|[http://www.math.wisc.edu/~andreic/ Andrei Căldăraru (Madison)]
|[[#Andrei Caldararu|Categorical Enumerative Invariants]]
|[[#Andrei Căldăraru|Categorical Enumerative Invariants]]
|[https://sites.google.com/view/catgw/ Series of 4 lectures at Imperial College]
|[https://sites.google.com/view/catgw/ Talk 1/4 in lecture series at Imperial College - Register here to get the link to the talk!]
|-
|-
|October 7
|September 18
|[https://www.math.wisc.edu/~arinkin/ Dima Arinkin (Madison)]
|[[#Dima Arinkin|Singular support of categories]]
|[https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/91919237303?pwd=SzhtYVpwSHhoVVFmQWx1NFpBVVNBQT09 Zoom link]
|-
|September 21 @ 10am
|[http://www.math.wisc.edu/~andreic/ Andrei Căldăraru (Madison)]
|[[#Andrei Căldăraru|Categorical Enumerative Invariants]]
|[https://sites.google.com/view/catgw/ Talk 2/4 in lecture series at Imperial College]
|-
|September 25
|[https://www.math.tamu.edu/~ola/ Aleksandra Sobieska (Madison)]
|[[#Aleksandra Sobieska|Toward Free Resolutions Over Scrolls]]
|
|-
|September 28 @ 10am
|[http://www.math.wisc.edu/~andreic/ Andrei Căldăraru (Madison)]
|[[#Andrei Căldăraru|Categorical Enumerative Invariants]]
|[https://sites.google.com/view/catgw/ Talk 3/4 in lecture series at Imperial College]
|-
|October 2
|Robert Scherer (UC Davis)
|[[#Robert Scherer|A Criterion for Asymptotic Sharpness in the Enumeration of Simply Generated Trees]]
|[https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 Zoom link]
|-
|October 5 @ 10am
|[http://www.math.wisc.edu/~andreic/ Andrei Căldăraru (Madison)]
|[[#Andrei Căldăraru|Categorical Enumerative Invariants]]
|[https://sites.google.com/view/catgw/ Talk 4/4 in lecture series at Imperial College]
|-
|October 7 @ 7pm
|[https://www.math.wisc.edu/~shamgar// Shamgar Gurevich (Madison)]
|[https://www.math.wisc.edu/~shamgar// Shamgar Gurevich (Madison)]
|[[#Shamgar Gurevich|TBD]]
|[[#Shamgar Gurevich|Harmonic Analysis on GLn over Finite Fields]]
| [https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAocOGhqjwiE91DEddxUhCudfQX5mzp-cPQ Register here to get link to talk at University of Sydney]
|-
|October 9
|[https://math.berkeley.edu/~germans/ German Stefanich (Berkeley) ]
|[[#German Stefanich|Categorified sheaf theory and the spectral Langlands TQFT]]
| [https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 Zoom link]
|-
|October 16
|[https://sites.google.com/view/ruijie-yang/ Ruijie Yang (Stony Brook)]
|[[#Ruijie Yang|Decomposition theorem for semisimple local systems]]
| [https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 Zoom link]
|-
|October 23
|[http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~ottxx141/ Nadia Ott (Mittag-Leffler Institute)]
|[[#Nadia Ott|The Supermoduli Space of Genus Zero SUSY Curves with Ramond Punctures]]
|[https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 Zoom link]
|-
|October 30
|[http://w3.impa.br/~heluani/ Reimundo Heluani (IMPA, Rio de Janeiro)]
|[[#Reimundo Heluani|Rogers Ramanujan type identities coming from representation theory]]
|
|-
|November 6
|[https://bakker.people.uic.edu/ Ben Bakker (UIC)]
|[[#Ben Bakker|Quasiprojectivity of images of mixed period maps]]
|[https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 Zoom link]
|-
|November 13
|[https://pages.uoregon.edu/honigs/ Katrina Honigs (Oregon)]
|[[#Katrina Honigs|An obstruction to weak approximation on some Calabi-Yau threefolds]]
|
|-
|December 4
|[https://www.iag.uni-hannover.de/de/institut/personenverzeichnis/stefan-schreieder/?&L=1 Stefan Schreieder (Hannover)]
|[[#Stefan Schreieder|Refined unramified cohomology and algebraic cycles]]
|
|
|-
|-
Line 29: Line 95:
== Abstracts ==
== Abstracts ==
===Andrei Căldăraru===
===Andrei Căldăraru===
'''Categorical Enumerative Invariants
'''Categorical Enumerative Invariants'''


I will talk about recent papers with Junwu Tu, Si Li, and Kevin Costello where we give a computable definition of Costello's 2005 invariants and compute some of them. These invariants are associated to a pair (A,s) consisting of a cyclic A∞-algebra and a choice of splitting s of its non-commutative Hodge filtration. They are expected to recover classical Gromov-Witten invariants when A is obtained from the Fukaya category of a symplectic manifold, as well as extend various B-model invariants (solutions of Picard-Fuchs equations, BCOV invariants, B-model FJRW invariants) when A is obtained from the derived category of a manifold or a matrix factorization category.
I will talk about recent papers with Junwu Tu, Si Li, and Kevin Costello where we give a computable definition of Costello's 2005 invariants and compute some of them. These invariants are associated to a pair (A,s) consisting of a cyclic A∞-algebra and a choice of splitting s of its non-commutative Hodge filtration. They are expected to recover classical Gromov-Witten invariants when A is obtained from the Fukaya category of a symplectic manifold, as well as extend various B-model invariants (solutions of Picard-Fuchs equations, BCOV invariants, B-model FJRW invariants) when A is obtained from the derived category of a manifold or a matrix factorization category.


Series of 4 talks at Imperial College.
===Dima Arinkin===
 
'''Singular support of categories'''
 
In many situations, geometric objects on a space have some kind of singular support, which refines the usual support.
For instance, for smooth X, the singular support of a D-module (or a perverse sheaf) on X is as a conical subset
of the cotangent bundle; there is also a version of this notion for coherent sheaves on local complete intersections.
I would like to describe a higher categorical version of this notion.
 
Let X be a smooth variety, and let Z be a closed conical isotropic subset of the cotangent bundle of X. I will define a
2-category associated with Z; its objects may be viewed as `categories over X with singular support in Z'. In particular, if Z is
the zero section, this gives the notion of categories over Z in the usual sense.
 
The project is motivated by the local geometric Langlands correspondence; I will sketch the relation with the Langlands correspondence without
going into details.
 
===Aleksandra Sobieska===
'''Toward Free Resolutions Over Scrolls'''
 
Free resolutions over the polynomial ring have a storied and active record of study.  However, resolutions over other rings are much more mysterious;  even simple examples can be infinite!  In these cases,  we look to any combinatorics of the ring to glean information.  This talk will present a minimal free resolution of the ground field over the semigroup ring arising from rational normal $2$-scrolls, and (if time permits) a computation of the Betti numbers of the ground field for all rational normal $k$-scrolls.
 
===Robert Scherer===
'''A Criterion for Asymptotic Sharpness in the Enumeration of Simply Generated Trees'''
 
We study the identity $y(x)=xA(y(x))$, from the theory of rooted trees, for appropriate generating functions $y(x)$ and $A(x)$ with non-negative integer coefficients. A problem that has been studied extensively is to determine the asymptotics of the coefficients of $y(x)$ from analytic properties of the complex function $z\mapsto A(z)$, assumed to have a positive radius of convergence $R$. It is well-known that the vanishing of $A(x)-xA'(x)$ on $(0,R)$ is sufficient to ensure that $y(r)<R$, where $r$ is the radius of convergence of $y(x)$. This result has been generalized in the literature to account for more general functional equations than the one above, and used to determine asymptotics for the Taylor coefficients of $y(x)$. What has not been shown is whether that sufficient condition is also necessary. We show here that it is, thus establishing a criterion for sharpness of the inequality $y(r)\leq R$. As an application, we prove, and significantly extend, a 1996 conjecture of Kuperberg regarding the asymptotic growth rate of an integer sequence arising in the study of Lie algebra representations.  


===Shamgar Gurevich===
===Shamgar Gurevich===
'''TBD
'''Harmonic Analysis on GLn over Finite Fields'''
 
There are many formulas that express interesting properties of a finite group G in terms of sums over
its characters. For estimating these sums, one of the most salient quantities to understand is the character ratio:
Trace(ρ(g)) / dim(ρ), for an irreducible representation ρ of G and an element g of G. For example, Diaconis
and Shahshahani stated a formula of the mentioned type for analyzing certain random walks on G. Recently,
we discovered that for classical groups G over finite fields there is a natural invariant of representations that
provides strong information on the character ratio. We call this invariant rank. Rank suggests a new
organization of representations based on the very few “Small” ones. This stands in contrast to Harish-Chandra’s
“philosophy of cusp forms”, which is (since the 60s) the main organization principle, and is based on the (huge
collection) of “Large” representations. This talk will discuss the notion of rank for the group GLn over finite
fields, demonstrate how it controls the character ratio, and explain how one can apply the results to verify
mixing time and rate for random walks. This is joint work with Roger Howe (Yale and Texas A&M). The
numerics for this work was carried with Steve Goldstein (Madison) and John Cannon (Sydney).
 
===German Stefanich===
'''Categorified sheaf theory and the spectral Langlands TQFT'''
 
It is expected that the Betti version of the geometric Langlands program should ultimately be about the equivalence of two 4-dimensional topological field theories. In this talk I will give an overview of ongoing work in categorified sheaf theory and explain how one can use it to describe the categories of boundary conditions arising on the spectral side.
 
===Ruijie Yang===
'''Decomposition theorem for semisimple local systems
'''
'''


Talk in Sydney, Australia.
In complex algebraic geometry, the decomposition theorem asserts that semisimple geometric objects remain semisimple after taking direct images under proper algebraic maps. This was conjectured by Kashiwara and is proved by Mochizuki and Sabbah in a series of very long papers via harmonic analysis and $D$-modules. In this talk, I would like to explain a simpler proof in the case of semisimple local systems using a more geometric approach. This is joint work in progress with Chuanhao Wei.
 
===Nadia Ott===
'''The Supermoduli Space of Genus Zero SUSY Curves with Ramond Punctures
 
Super Riemann surfaces (SUSY curves) arise in the formulation of superstring theory, and their moduli spaces, called supermoduli space, are the integration spaces for superstring scattering amplitudes. I will focus specifically on genus zero SUSY curves. As with ordinary curves, genus zero SUSY curves present a certain challenge, as they have an infinitesimal group of automorphisms, and so in order for the moduli problem to be representable by a Deligne-Mumford superstack, we must introduce punctures. In fact, there are two kinds of punctures on a SUSY curve of Neveu-Schwarz or Ramond type. Neveu-Schwarz punctures are entirely analogous to the marked points in ordinary moduli theory. By contrast, the Ramond punctures are more subtle and have no ordinary analog. I will give a construction of the moduli space M_{0,n}^R of genus zero SUSY curves with Ramond punctures as a Deligne-Mumford superstack by an explicit quotient presentation (rather than by an abstract existence argument).
 
===Reimundo Heluani===
'''A Rogers-Ramanujan-Slater type identity related to the Ising model'''
 
We prove three new q-series identities of the Rogers-Ramanujan-Slater
type. We find a PBW basis for the Ising model as a consequence of one of these
identities. If time permits it will be shown that the singular support of the
Ising model is a hyper-surface (in the differential sense) on the arc space of
it's associated scheme. This is joint work with G. E. Andrews and J. van Ekeren
and is available online at https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.10769
 
===Ben Bakker===
'''Quasiprojectivity of images of mixed period maps'''
 
Families of smooth proper algebraic varieties give rise to variations of pure Hodge structures; general algebraic families yield variations of mixed Hodge structures.  It was conjectured by Griffiths and proven in joint work with Y. Brunebarbe and J. Tsimerman that the closure of the image of the classifying map to the moduli space of Hodge structures is a quasiprojective algebraic variety in the pure case.  In this talk I will explain how to extend this result to the mixed setting.  As in the pure case, the proof heavily uses techniques from o-minimal geometry, and we will also discuss some related applications. 
 
===Katrina Honigs===
'''An obstruction to weak approximation on some Calabi-Yau threefolds'''
 
The study of Q-rational points on algebraic varieties is fundamental to arithmetic geometry. One of the few methods available to show that a variety does not have any Q-points is to give a Brauer-Manin obstruction. Hosono and Takagi have constructed a class of Calabi-Yau threefolds that occur as a linear section of a double quintic symmetroid and given a detailed analysis of them as complex varieties in the context of mirror symmetry. This construction can be used to produce varieties over Q as well, and these threefolds come tantalizingly equipped with a natural Brauer class. In work with Hashimoto, Lamarche and Vogt, we analyze these threefolds and their Brauer class over Q and give a condition under which the Brauer class obstructs weak approximation, though it cannot obstruct the existence of Q-rational points.
 
===Stefan Schreieder===
'''Refined unramified cohomology and algebraic cycles'''
 
We introduce refined unramified cohomology groups, explain their relation to classical unramified cohomology, and prove some general comparison theorems to certain cycle groups. This generalizes and simplifies work of Bloch—Ogus, Colliot-Thélène—Voisin, Voisin, and Ma who dealt with cycles of low (co-)dimension. Our approach has several applications. Most notably, it allows to construct the first example of a variety with infinite torsion in its Griffiths group.

Latest revision as of 00:26, 17 January 2021

The Virtual Seminar will take place on Fridays at 2:30 pm via Zoom. We will also link to relevant or interesting Zoom talks outside of the seminar. The link to the Spring 2021 seminar is here: Spring 2021 Seminar

Algebra and Algebraic Geometry Mailing List

  • Please join the AGS mailing list by sending an email to ags+join@g-groups.wisc.edu to hear about upcoming seminars, lunches, and other algebraic geometry events in the department (it is possible you must be on a math department computer to use this link).

COVID-19 Update

As a result of Covid-19, the seminar for this semester will be held virtually. The default Zoom link for the seminar is https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/9502605167 (sometimes we will have to use a different meeting link, if Michael K cannot host that day).

Fall 2020 Schedule

date speaker title link to talk
September 14 @ 10am Andrei Căldăraru (Madison) Categorical Enumerative Invariants Talk 1/4 in lecture series at Imperial College - Register here to get the link to the talk!
September 18 Dima Arinkin (Madison) Singular support of categories Zoom link
September 21 @ 10am Andrei Căldăraru (Madison) Categorical Enumerative Invariants Talk 2/4 in lecture series at Imperial College
September 25 Aleksandra Sobieska (Madison) Toward Free Resolutions Over Scrolls
September 28 @ 10am Andrei Căldăraru (Madison) Categorical Enumerative Invariants Talk 3/4 in lecture series at Imperial College
October 2 Robert Scherer (UC Davis) A Criterion for Asymptotic Sharpness in the Enumeration of Simply Generated Trees Zoom link
October 5 @ 10am Andrei Căldăraru (Madison) Categorical Enumerative Invariants Talk 4/4 in lecture series at Imperial College
October 7 @ 7pm Shamgar Gurevich (Madison) Harmonic Analysis on GLn over Finite Fields Register here to get link to talk at University of Sydney
October 9 German Stefanich (Berkeley) Categorified sheaf theory and the spectral Langlands TQFT Zoom link
October 16 Ruijie Yang (Stony Brook) Decomposition theorem for semisimple local systems Zoom link
October 23 Nadia Ott (Mittag-Leffler Institute) The Supermoduli Space of Genus Zero SUSY Curves with Ramond Punctures Zoom link
October 30 Reimundo Heluani (IMPA, Rio de Janeiro) Rogers Ramanujan type identities coming from representation theory
November 6 Ben Bakker (UIC) Quasiprojectivity of images of mixed period maps Zoom link
November 13 Katrina Honigs (Oregon) An obstruction to weak approximation on some Calabi-Yau threefolds
December 4 Stefan Schreieder (Hannover) Refined unramified cohomology and algebraic cycles

Abstracts

Andrei Căldăraru

Categorical Enumerative Invariants

I will talk about recent papers with Junwu Tu, Si Li, and Kevin Costello where we give a computable definition of Costello's 2005 invariants and compute some of them. These invariants are associated to a pair (A,s) consisting of a cyclic A∞-algebra and a choice of splitting s of its non-commutative Hodge filtration. They are expected to recover classical Gromov-Witten invariants when A is obtained from the Fukaya category of a symplectic manifold, as well as extend various B-model invariants (solutions of Picard-Fuchs equations, BCOV invariants, B-model FJRW invariants) when A is obtained from the derived category of a manifold or a matrix factorization category.

Dima Arinkin

Singular support of categories

In many situations, geometric objects on a space have some kind of singular support, which refines the usual support. For instance, for smooth X, the singular support of a D-module (or a perverse sheaf) on X is as a conical subset of the cotangent bundle; there is also a version of this notion for coherent sheaves on local complete intersections. I would like to describe a higher categorical version of this notion.

Let X be a smooth variety, and let Z be a closed conical isotropic subset of the cotangent bundle of X. I will define a 2-category associated with Z; its objects may be viewed as `categories over X with singular support in Z'. In particular, if Z is the zero section, this gives the notion of categories over Z in the usual sense.

The project is motivated by the local geometric Langlands correspondence; I will sketch the relation with the Langlands correspondence without going into details.

Aleksandra Sobieska

Toward Free Resolutions Over Scrolls

Free resolutions over the polynomial ring have a storied and active record of study. However, resolutions over other rings are much more mysterious; even simple examples can be infinite! In these cases, we look to any combinatorics of the ring to glean information. This talk will present a minimal free resolution of the ground field over the semigroup ring arising from rational normal $2$-scrolls, and (if time permits) a computation of the Betti numbers of the ground field for all rational normal $k$-scrolls.

Robert Scherer

A Criterion for Asymptotic Sharpness in the Enumeration of Simply Generated Trees

We study the identity $y(x)=xA(y(x))$, from the theory of rooted trees, for appropriate generating functions $y(x)$ and $A(x)$ with non-negative integer coefficients. A problem that has been studied extensively is to determine the asymptotics of the coefficients of $y(x)$ from analytic properties of the complex function $z\mapsto A(z)$, assumed to have a positive radius of convergence $R$. It is well-known that the vanishing of $A(x)-xA'(x)$ on $(0,R)$ is sufficient to ensure that $y(r)<R$, where $r$ is the radius of convergence of $y(x)$. This result has been generalized in the literature to account for more general functional equations than the one above, and used to determine asymptotics for the Taylor coefficients of $y(x)$. What has not been shown is whether that sufficient condition is also necessary. We show here that it is, thus establishing a criterion for sharpness of the inequality $y(r)\leq R$. As an application, we prove, and significantly extend, a 1996 conjecture of Kuperberg regarding the asymptotic growth rate of an integer sequence arising in the study of Lie algebra representations.

Shamgar Gurevich

Harmonic Analysis on GLn over Finite Fields

There are many formulas that express interesting properties of a finite group G in terms of sums over its characters. For estimating these sums, one of the most salient quantities to understand is the character ratio: Trace(ρ(g)) / dim(ρ), for an irreducible representation ρ of G and an element g of G. For example, Diaconis and Shahshahani stated a formula of the mentioned type for analyzing certain random walks on G. Recently, we discovered that for classical groups G over finite fields there is a natural invariant of representations that provides strong information on the character ratio. We call this invariant rank. Rank suggests a new organization of representations based on the very few “Small” ones. This stands in contrast to Harish-Chandra’s “philosophy of cusp forms”, which is (since the 60s) the main organization principle, and is based on the (huge collection) of “Large” representations. This talk will discuss the notion of rank for the group GLn over finite fields, demonstrate how it controls the character ratio, and explain how one can apply the results to verify mixing time and rate for random walks. This is joint work with Roger Howe (Yale and Texas A&M). The numerics for this work was carried with Steve Goldstein (Madison) and John Cannon (Sydney).

German Stefanich

Categorified sheaf theory and the spectral Langlands TQFT

It is expected that the Betti version of the geometric Langlands program should ultimately be about the equivalence of two 4-dimensional topological field theories. In this talk I will give an overview of ongoing work in categorified sheaf theory and explain how one can use it to describe the categories of boundary conditions arising on the spectral side.

Ruijie Yang

Decomposition theorem for semisimple local systems

In complex algebraic geometry, the decomposition theorem asserts that semisimple geometric objects remain semisimple after taking direct images under proper algebraic maps. This was conjectured by Kashiwara and is proved by Mochizuki and Sabbah in a series of very long papers via harmonic analysis and $D$-modules. In this talk, I would like to explain a simpler proof in the case of semisimple local systems using a more geometric approach. This is joint work in progress with Chuanhao Wei.

Nadia Ott

The Supermoduli Space of Genus Zero SUSY Curves with Ramond Punctures

Super Riemann surfaces (SUSY curves) arise in the formulation of superstring theory, and their moduli spaces, called supermoduli space, are the integration spaces for superstring scattering amplitudes. I will focus specifically on genus zero SUSY curves. As with ordinary curves, genus zero SUSY curves present a certain challenge, as they have an infinitesimal group of automorphisms, and so in order for the moduli problem to be representable by a Deligne-Mumford superstack, we must introduce punctures. In fact, there are two kinds of punctures on a SUSY curve of Neveu-Schwarz or Ramond type. Neveu-Schwarz punctures are entirely analogous to the marked points in ordinary moduli theory. By contrast, the Ramond punctures are more subtle and have no ordinary analog. I will give a construction of the moduli space M_{0,n}^R of genus zero SUSY curves with Ramond punctures as a Deligne-Mumford superstack by an explicit quotient presentation (rather than by an abstract existence argument).

Reimundo Heluani

A Rogers-Ramanujan-Slater type identity related to the Ising model

We prove three new q-series identities of the Rogers-Ramanujan-Slater type. We find a PBW basis for the Ising model as a consequence of one of these identities. If time permits it will be shown that the singular support of the Ising model is a hyper-surface (in the differential sense) on the arc space of it's associated scheme. This is joint work with G. E. Andrews and J. van Ekeren and is available online at https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.10769

Ben Bakker

Quasiprojectivity of images of mixed period maps

Families of smooth proper algebraic varieties give rise to variations of pure Hodge structures; general algebraic families yield variations of mixed Hodge structures. It was conjectured by Griffiths and proven in joint work with Y. Brunebarbe and J. Tsimerman that the closure of the image of the classifying map to the moduli space of Hodge structures is a quasiprojective algebraic variety in the pure case. In this talk I will explain how to extend this result to the mixed setting. As in the pure case, the proof heavily uses techniques from o-minimal geometry, and we will also discuss some related applications.

Katrina Honigs

An obstruction to weak approximation on some Calabi-Yau threefolds

The study of Q-rational points on algebraic varieties is fundamental to arithmetic geometry. One of the few methods available to show that a variety does not have any Q-points is to give a Brauer-Manin obstruction. Hosono and Takagi have constructed a class of Calabi-Yau threefolds that occur as a linear section of a double quintic symmetroid and given a detailed analysis of them as complex varieties in the context of mirror symmetry. This construction can be used to produce varieties over Q as well, and these threefolds come tantalizingly equipped with a natural Brauer class. In work with Hashimoto, Lamarche and Vogt, we analyze these threefolds and their Brauer class over Q and give a condition under which the Brauer class obstructs weak approximation, though it cannot obstruct the existence of Q-rational points.

Stefan Schreieder

Refined unramified cohomology and algebraic cycles

We introduce refined unramified cohomology groups, explain their relation to classical unramified cohomology, and prove some general comparison theorems to certain cycle groups. This generalizes and simplifies work of Bloch—Ogus, Colliot-Thélène—Voisin, Voisin, and Ma who dealt with cycles of low (co-)dimension. Our approach has several applications. Most notably, it allows to construct the first example of a variety with infinite torsion in its Griffiths group.