Paul Seidel

  1. Altering symplectic manifolds by homologous recombination.

    Authors: Paul Seidel, Mohammed Abouzaid
    Subjects: Symplectic Geometry
    Abstract

    We use symplectic cohomology to study the non-uniqueness of symplectic
    structures on the smooth manifolds underlying affine varieties. Starting with a
    Lefschetz fibration on such a variety and a finite set of primes, the main new
    tool is a method, which we call homologous recombination, for constructing a
    Lefschetz fibration whose total space is smoothly equivalent to the original
    variety, but for which symplectic cohomology with coefficients in the given set
    of primes vanishes (there is also a simpler version that kills symplectic
    cohomology completely).

  2. Localization for involutions in Floer cohomology.

    Authors: Paul Seidel, Ivan Smith
    Subjects: Symplectic Geometry
    Abstract

    We consider Lagrangian Floer cohomology for a pair of Lagrangian submanifolds
    in a symplectic manifold M. Suppose that M carries a symplectic involution,
    which preserves both submanifolds. Under various topological hypotheses, we
    prove a localization theorem for Floer cohomology, which implies a Smith-type
    inequality for the Floer cohomology groups in M and its fixed point set. Two
    applications to symplectic Khovanov cohomology are included.

  3. Fukaya A_\infty structures associated to Lefschetz fibrations. I.

    Authors: Paul Seidel
    Subjects: Symplectic Geometry
    Abstract

    This (partially expository) paper discusses Lagrangian Floer cohomology in
    the context of Lefschetz fibrations, with emphasis on the algebraic structures
    encountered there. In addition to the well-known directed A_infinity algebras
    which appear in this situation, one has additional information encoded in a
    certain bimodule homomorphism. There are two approaches to constructing this
    homomorphism: in terms of the (noncompact) Lefschetz thimbles in the total
    space, or else in terms of vanishing cycle in the fibre.

  4. Lefschetz fibrations and exotic symplectic structures on cotangent bundles of spheres.

    Authors: Paul Seidel, Maksim Maydanskiy
    Subjects: Symplectic Geometry
    Abstract

    We construct open symplectic manifolds which are convex at infinity
    ("Liouville manifolds") and which are diffeomorphic, but not symplectically
    isomorphic, to cotangent bundles T^*S^{n+1}, for any n+1 \geq 3.

    These manifolds are constructed as total spaces of Lefschetz fibrations,
    where the fibre and all but one of the vanishing cycles are fixed. We show that
    almost any choice of the last vanishing cycle leads to a nonstandard symplectic
    structure (those choices which yield standard T^*S^{n+1} can be exactly
    determined).

  5. Homological mirror symmetry for the genus two curve.

    Authors: Paul Seidel
    Subjects: Algebraic Geometry
    Abstract

    Katzarkov has proposed a generalization of Kontsevich's mirror symmetry
    conjecture, covering some varieties of general type. We prove a version of this
    conjecture in the simplest example, relating the Fukaya category of a genus two
    curve to the category of Landau-Ginzburg branes on a certain singular rational
    surface.

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