Bitangents of tropical plane quartic curves

We study smooth tropical plane quartic curves and show that they satisfy certain properties analogous to (but also different from) smooth plane quartics in algebraic geometry. For example, we show that every such curve admits either infinitely many or exactly 7 bitangent lines. We also prove that a smooth tropical plane quartic curve cannot be hyperelliptic.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Minor revisions; accepted for publication in Mathematische Zeitschrif

Notes on TQFT Wire Models and Coherence Equations for SU(3) Triangular Cells

After a summary of the TQFT wire model formalism we bridge the gap from Kuperberg equations for SU(3) spiders to Ocneanu coherence equations for systems of triangular cells on fusion graphs that describe modules associated with the fusion category of SU(3) at level k. We show how to solve these equations in a number of examples.Comment: 44 figure

A geometric approach to free variable loop equations in discretized theories of 2D gravity

We present a self-contained analysis of theories of discrete 2D gravity coupled to matter, using geometric methods to derive equations for generating functions in terms of free (noncommuting) variables. For the class of discrete gravity theories which correspond to matrix models, our method is a generalization of the technique of Schwinger-Dyson equations and is closely related to recent work describing the master field in terms of noncommuting variables; the important differences are that we derive a single equation for the generating function using purely graphical arguments, and that the approach is applicable to a broader class of theories than those described by matrix models. Several example applications are given here, including theories of gravity coupled to a single Ising spin ($c = 1/2$), multiple Ising spins ($c = k/2$), a general class of two-matrix models which includes the Ising theory and its dual, the three-state Potts model, and a dually weighted graph model which does not admit a simple description in terms of matrix models.Comment: 40 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX; final publication versio