Topics in symplectic Gromov–Witten theory
The main focus of this thesis is on the Gromov--Witten theory of general symplectic manifolds. Mohan Swaminathan and I construct a framework to define a virtual fundamental class for the moduli space of stable maps to a general closed symplectic manifold. Our construction, inspired by [AMS21], works for all genera and leads to a more straightfoward definition of symplectic Gromov--Witten invariants as was previously available. We prove a formula for the Gromov--Witten invariants of a product of two symplectic manifolds, conjectured in [KM94]. I generalise the product formula to a formula for the Gromov--Witten invariants of a suitable fibre product of symplectic manifolds. Our invariants satisfy the Kontsevich-Manin axioms and are extended to descendent Gromov--Witten invariants. I show that our definition of Gromov--Witten invariants agrees with the classical Gromov--Witten invariants defined by [RT97] for semipositive symplectic manifolds. Given a Hamiltonian group action on the target manifold, I construct equivariant Gromov--Witten invariants and prove a virtual Atiyah--Bott-type localisation formula, providing a tool for computations. Together with Soham Chanda and Luya Wang, I construct infinitely many exotic Lagrangian tori in complex projective spaces of complex dimension higher than $2$. We lift tori in $\mathbb{P}$2, constructed by Vianna, and show that these lifts remain non-symplectomorphic, using an invariant derived from pseudoholomorphic disks. Noah Porcelli and I use Ljusternik-Schnirelmann theory, applied to moduli spaces of pseudoholomorphic curves, and homotopy theory to prove lower bounds on the number of intersection points of two (possibly non-transverse) Lagrangians in terms of the cuplength of the Lagrangian in generalised cohomology theories, improving previous lower bounds by Hofer.
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