We give applications of integral canonical models of orthogonal Shimura varieties and the Kuga-Satake morphism to the arithmetic of $K3$ surfaces over finite fields. We prove that every $K3$ surface of finite height over a finite field admits a characteristic $0$ lifting whose generic fibre is a $K3$ surface with complex multiplication. Combined with the results of Mukai and Buskin, we prove the Tate conjecture for the square of a $K3$ surface over a finite field. To obtain these results, we construct an analogue of Kisin’s algebraic group for a $K3$ surface of finite height and construct characteristic $0$ liftings of the $K3$ surface preserving the action of tori in the algebraic group. We obtain these results for $K3$ surfaces over finite fields of any characteristics, including those of characteristic $2$ or $3$.

Building on work of Segre and Kollár on cubic hypersurfaces, we construct over imperfect fields of characteristic $p\geq 3$ particular hypersurfaces of degree p, which show that geometrically rational schemes that are regular and whose rational points are Zariski dense are not necessarily unirational. A likewise behavior holds for certain cubic surfaces in characteristic $p=2$.

We prove that the Kodaira dimension of the n-fold universal family of lattice-polarised holomorphic symplectic varieties with dominant and generically finite period map stabilises to the moduli number when n is sufficiently large. Then we study the transition of Kodaira dimension explicitly, from negative to nonnegative, for known explicit families of polarised symplectic varieties. In particular, we determine the exact transition point in the Beauville–Donagi and Debarre–Voisin cases, where the Borcherds $\Phi _{12}$ form plays a crucial role.

We prove a conjecture of Maulik, Pandharipande and Thomas expressing the Gromov–Witten invariants of K3 surfaces for divisibility 2 curve classes in all genera in terms of weakly holomorphic quasi-modular forms of level 2. Then we establish the holomorphic anomaly equation in divisibility 2 in all genera. Our approach involves a refined boundary induction, relying on the top tautological group of the moduli space of smooth curves, together with a degeneration formula for the reduced virtual fundamental class with imprimitive curve classes. We use double ramification relations with target variety as a new tool to prove the initial condition. The relationship between the holomorphic anomaly equation for higher divisibility and the conjectural multiple cover formula of Oberdieck and Pandharipande is discussed in detail and illustrated with several examples.

In this paper, we develop the theory of singular Hermitian metrics on vector bundles. As an application, we give a structure theorem of a projective manifold X with pseudo-effective tangent bundle; X admits a smooth fibration $X \to Y$ to a flat projective manifold Y such that its general fibre is rationally connected. Moreover, by applying this structure theorem, we classify all the minimal surfaces with pseudo-effective tangent bundle and study general nonminimal surfaces, which provide examples of (possibly singular) positively curved tangent bundles.

We conjecture a Verlinde type formula for the moduli space of Higgs sheaves on a surface with a holomorphic 2-form. The conjecture specializes to a Verlinde formula for the moduli space of sheaves. Our formula interpolates between K-theoretic Donaldson invariants studied by Göttsche and Nakajima-Yoshioka and K-theoretic Vafa-Witten invariants introduced by Thomas and also studied by Göttsche and Kool. We verify our conjectures in many examples (for example, on K3 surfaces).

We exhibit a large class of quiver moduli spaces, which are Fano varieties, by studying line bundles on quiver moduli and their global sections in general, and work out several classes of examples, comprising moduli spaces of point configurations, Kronecker moduli, and toric quiver moduli.

We prove that the number of MMP-series of a smooth projective threefold of positive Kodaira dimension and of Picard number equal to three is at most two.

We use tropical curves and toric degeneration techniques to construct closed embedded Lagrangian rational homology spheres in a lot of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The homology spheres are mirror dual to the holomorphic curves contributing to the Gromov-Witten (GW) invariants. In view of Joyce’s conjecture, these Lagrangians are expected to have special Lagrangian representatives and hence solve a special Lagrangian enumerative problem in Calabi-Yau threefolds.

We apply this construction to the tropical curves obtained from the 2,875 lines on the quintic Calabi-Yau threefold. Each admissible tropical curve gives a Lagrangian rational homology sphere in the corresponding mirror quintic threefold and the Joyce’s weight of each of these Lagrangians equals the multiplicity of the corresponding tropical curve.

As applications, we show that disjoint curves give pairwise homologous but non-Hamiltonian isotopic Lagrangians and we check in an example that $>300$ mutually disjoint curves (and hence Lagrangians) arise. Dehn twists along these Lagrangians generate an abelian subgroup of the symplectic mapping class group with that rank.

Tian’s criterion for K-stability states that a Fano variety of dimension n whose alpha invariant is greater than ${n}{/(n+1)}$ is K-stable. We show that this criterion is sharp by constructing n-dimensional singular Fano varieties with alpha invariants ${n}{/(n+1)}$ that are not K-polystable for sufficiently large n. We also construct K-unstable Fano varieties with alpha invariants ${(n-1)}{/n}$.

We compactify and regularise the space of initial values of a planar map with a quartic invariant and use this construction to prove its integrability in the sense of algebraic entropy. The system has certain unusual properties, including a sequence of points of indeterminacy in $\mathbb {P}^{1}\!\times \mathbb {P}^{1}$. These indeterminacy points lie on a singular fibre of the mapping to a corresponding QRT system and provide the existence of a one-parameter family of special solutions.

Yoshikawa in [Invent. Math. 156 (2004), 53–117] introduces a holomorphic torsion invariant of $K3$ surfaces with involution. In this paper we completely determine its structure as an automorphic function on the moduli space of such $K3$ surfaces. On every component of the moduli space, it is expressed as the product of an explicit Borcherds lift and a classical Siegel modular form. We also introduce its twisted version. We prove its modularity and a certain uniqueness of the modular form corresponding to the twisted holomorphic torsion invariant. This is used to study an equivariant analogue of Borcherds’ conjecture.

In this note, we study homology classes in the mirror quintic Calabi–Yau threefold that can be realized by special Lagrangian submanifolds. We have used Picard–Lefschetz theory to establish the monodromy action and to study the orbit of Lagrangian vanishing cycles. For many prime numbers $p,$ we can compute the orbit modulo p. We conjecture that the orbit in homology with coefficients in $\mathbb {Z}$ can be determined by these orbits with coefficients in $\mathbb {Z}_p$.

We study the moduli space of rank 2 instanton sheaves on ℙ3 in terms of representations of a quiver consisting of three vertices and four arrows between two pairs of vertices. Aiming at an alternative compactification for the moduli space of instanton sheaves, we show that for each rank 2 instanton sheaf, there is a stability parameter θ for which the corresponding quiver representation is θ-stable (in the sense of King), and that the space of stability parameters has a non-trivial wall-and-chamber decomposition. Looking more closely at instantons of low charge, we prove that there are stability parameters with respect to which every representation corresponding to a rank 2 instanton sheaf of charge 2 is stable and provide a complete description of the wall-and-chamber decomposition for representation corresponding to a rank 2 instanton sheaf of charge 1.

We classify real two-dimensional orbits of conformal subgroups such that the orbits contain two circular arcs through a point. Such surfaces must be toric and admit a Möbius automorphism group of dimension at least two. Our theorem generalizes the classical classification of Dupin cyclides.

Cluster algebras give rise to a class of Gorenstein rings which enjoy a large amount of symmetry. Concentrating on the rank 2 cases, we show how cluster varieties can be used to construct many interesting projective algebraic varieties. Our main application is then to construct hundreds of families of Fano 3-folds in codimensions 4 and 5. In particular, for Fano 3-folds in codimension 4 we construct at least one family for 187 of the 206 possible Hilbert polynomials contained in the Graded Ring Database.

We show that every coarse moduli space, parametrizing complex special linear rank-2 local systems with fixed boundary traces on a surface with nonempty boundary, is log Calabi–Yau in that it has a normal projective compactification with trivial log canonical divisor. We connect this to a novel symmetry of generating series for counts of essential multicurves on the surface.

We express nested Hilbert schemes of points and curves on a smooth projective surface as ‘virtual resolutions’ of degeneracy loci of maps of vector bundles on smooth ambient spaces. We show how to modify the resulting obstruction theories to produce the virtual cycles of Vafa–Witten theory and other sheaf-counting problems. The result is an effective way of calculating invariants (VW, SW, local PT and local DT) via Thom–Porteous-like Chern class formulae.

We present a systematic study of threefolds fibred by K3 surfaces that are mirror to sextic double planes. There are many parallels between this theory and the theory of elliptic surfaces. We show that the geometry of such threefolds is controlled by a pair of invariants, called the generalized functional and generalized homological invariants, and we derive an explicit birational model for them, which we call the Weierstrass form. We then describe how to resolve the singularities of the Weierstrass form to obtain the “minimal form”, which has mild singularities and is unique up to birational maps in codimension 2. Finally, we describe some of the geometric properties of threefolds in minimal form, including their singular fibres, canonical divisor, and Betti numbers.