Regular homotopy of Hurwitz curves

We prove that any two irreducible cuspidal Hurwitz curves $C_0$ and $C_1$ (or more generally, curves with A-type singularities) in the Hirzebruch surface $F_N$ with coinciding homology classes and sets of singularities are regular homotopic; and symplectically regular homotopic if $C_0$ and $C_1$ are symplectic with respect to a compatible symplectic form.Comment: 26 page

Suspending Lefschetz fibrations, with an application to Local Mirror Symmetry

We consider the suspension operation on Lefschetz fibrations, which takes p(x) to p(x)-y^2. This leaves the Fukaya category of the fibration invariant, and changes the category of the fibre (or more precisely, the subcategory consisting of a basis of vanishing cycles) in a specific way. As an application, we prove part of Homological Mirror Symmetry for the total spaces of canonical bundles over toric del Pezzo surfaces.Comment: v2: slightly expanded expositio

Mirror symmetry for Del Pezzo surfaces: Vanishing cycles and coherent sheaves

We study homological mirror symmetry for Del Pezzo surfaces and their mirror Landau-Ginzburg models. In particular, we show that the derived category of coherent sheaves on a Del Pezzo surface X_k obtained by blowing up CP^2 at k points is equivalent to the derived category of vanishing cycles of a certain elliptic fibration W_k:M_k\to\C with k+3 singular fibers, equipped with a suitable symplectic form. Moreover, we also show that this mirror correspondence between derived categories can be extended to noncommutative deformations of X_k, and give an explicit correspondence between the deformation parameters for X_k and the cohomology class [B+i\omega]\in H^2(M_k,C).Comment: 40 pages, 9 figure

Special lagrangian fibrations on flag variety F3F^3

One constructs lagrangian fibrations on the flag variety $F^3$ and proves that the fibrations are special.Comment: 19 page

Social Work handbook

2002 handbook for the Board of Studies in Social Wor

Brieskorn manifolds as contact branched covers of spheres

We show that Brieskorn manifolds with their standard contact structures are contact branched coverings of spheres. This covering maps a contact open book decomposition of the Brieskorn manifold onto a Milnor open book of the sphere.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Constructions of generalized complex structures in dimension four

Four-manifold theory is employed to study the existence of (twisted) generalized complex structures. It is shown that there exist (twisted) generalized complex structures that have more than one type change loci. In an example-driven fashion, (twisted) generalized complex structures are constructed on a myriad of four-manifolds, both simply and non-simply connected, which are neither complex nor symplectic