Shapes of polyhedra and triangulations of the sphere

The space of shapes of a polyhedron with given total angles less than 2\pi at each of its n vertices has a Kaehler metric, locally isometric to complex hyperbolic space CH^{n-3}. The metric is not complete: collisions between vertices take place a finite distance from a nonsingular point. The metric completion is a complex hyperbolic cone-manifold. In some interesting special cases, the metric completion is an orbifold. The concrete description of these spaces of shapes gives information about the combinatorial classification of triangulations of the sphere with no more than 6 triangles at a vertex.Comment: 39 pages. Published copy, also available at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTMon1/paper25.abs.htm

Germs of de Rham cohomology classes which vanish at the generic point

We show that hypergeometric differential equations, unitary and Gauss-Manin connections give rise to de Rham cohomology sheaves which do not admit a Bloch-Ogus resolution. The latter is in contrast to Panin's theorem asserting that corresponding \'etale cohomology sheaves do fulfill Bloch-Ogus theory.Comment: latex 2e, 6 page

On the Deligne--Beilinson cohomology sheaves

We are showing that the Deligne--Beilinson cohomology sheaves ${\cal H}^{q+1}({\bf Z}(q)_{\cal D})$ are torsion free by assuming Kato's conjectures hold true for function fields. This result is `effective' for $q=2$; in this case, by dealing with `arithmetic properties' of the presheaves of mixed Hodge structures defined by singular cohomology, we are able to give a cohomological characterization of the Albanese kernel for surfaces with $p_g=0$.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX 2.0

Graded and Filtered Fiber Functors on Tannakian Categories

We study fiber functors on Tannakian categories which are equipped with a grading or a filtration. Our goal is to give a comprehensive set of foundational results about such functors. A main result is that each filtration on a fiber functor can be split by a grading fpqc-locally on the base scheme

Chow rings and decomposition theorems for families of K3 surfaces and Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces

The decomposition theorem for smooth projective morphisms $\pi:\mathcal{X}\rightarrow B$ says that $R\pi_*\mathbb{Q}$ decomposes as $\oplus R^i\pi_*\mathbb{Q}[-i]$. We describe simple examples where it is not possible to have such a decomposition compatible with cup-product, even after restriction to Zariski dense open sets of $B$. We prove however that this is always possible for families of $K3$ surfaces (after shrinking the base), and show how this result relates to a result by Beauville and the author on the Chow ring of $K3$ surfaces $S$. We give two proofs of this result, the second one involving a certain decomposition of the small diagonal in $S^3$ also proved by Beauville and the author}. We prove an analogue of such a decomposition of the small diagonal in $X^3$ for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces $X$ in $\mathbb{P}^n$, which in turn provides strong restrictions on their Chow ring.Comment: Final version, to appear in Geometry \& Topolog

2-Gerbes bound by complexes of gr-stacks, and cohomology

We define 2-gerbes bound by complexes of braided group-like stacks. We prove a classification result in terms of hypercohomology groups with values in abelian crossed squares and cones of morphisms of complexes of length 3. We give an application to the geometric construction of certain elements in Hermitian Deligne cohomology groups.Comment: 70 pages, latex+amsmath+xypi

Integration of simplicial forms and Deligne cohomology

We present two approaches to constructing an integration map for smooth Deligne cohomology. The first is defined in the simplicial model, where a class in Deligne cohomology is represented by a simplicial form, and the second in a related but more combinatorial model.Comment: 28 pages, section on products adde

Supersolutions

We develop classical globally supersymmetric theories. As much as possible, we treat various dimensions and various amounts of supersymmetry in a uniform manner. We discuss theories both in components and in superspace. Throughout we emphasize geometric aspects. The beginning chapters give a general discussion about supersymmetric field theories; then we move on to detailed computations of lagrangians, etc. in specific theories. An appendix details our sign conventions. This text will appear in a two-volume work "Quantum Fields and Strings: A Course for Mathematicians" to be published soon by the American Mathematical Society. Some of the cross-references may be found at http://www.math.ias.edu/~drm/QFT/Comment: 130 pages, AMSTe