GLSM's for gerbes (and other toric stacks)

In this paper we will discuss gauged linear sigma model descriptions of toric stacks. Toric stacks have a simple description in terms of (symplectic, GIT) ${\bf C}^{\times}$ quotients of homogeneous coordinates, in exactly the same form as toric varieties. We describe the physics of the gauged linear sigma models that formally coincide with the mathematical description of toric stacks, and check that physical predictions of those gauged linear sigma models exactly match the corresponding stacks. We also check in examples that when a given toric stack has multiple presentations in a form accessible as a gauged linear sigma model, that the IR physics of those different presentations matches, so that the IR physics is presentation-independent, making it reasonable to associate CFT's to stacks, not just presentations of stacks. We discuss mirror symmetry for stacks, using Morrison-Plesser-Hori-Vafa techniques to compute mirrors explicitly, and also find a natural generalization of Batyrev's mirror conjecture. In the process of studying mirror symmetry, we find some new abstract CFT's, involving fields valued in roots of unity.Comment: 43 pages, LaTeX, 3 figures; v2: typos fixe

Density of monodromy actions on non-abelian cohomology

In this paper we study the monodromy action on the first Betti and de Rham non-abelian cohomology arising from a family of smooth curves. We describe sufficient conditions for the existence of a Zariski dense monodromy orbit. In particular we show that for a Lefschetz pencil of sufficiently high degree the monodromy action is dense.Comment: LaTeX2e, 48 pages, Version substantially revised for publication. A gap in the proof of the density for Lefschetz pencils is fixed. The case of hyperelliptic monodromy is also treated in detai

Schematic homotopy types and non-abelian Hodge theory

In this work we use Hodge theoretic methods to study homotopy types of complex projective manifolds with arbitrary fundamental groups. The main tool we use is the \textit{schematization functor} $X \mapsto (X\otimes \mathbb{C})^{sch}$, introduced by the third author as a substitute for the rationalization functor in homotopy theory in the case of non-simply connected spaces. Our main result is the construction of a \textit{Hodge decomposition} on $(X\otimes\mathbb{C})^{sch}$. This Hodge decomposition is encoded in an action of the discrete group $\mathbb{C}^{\times \delta}$ on the object $(X\otimes \mathbb{C})^{sch}$ and is shown to recover the usual Hodge decomposition on cohomology, the Hodge filtration on the pro-algebraic fundamental group as defined by C.Simpson, and in the simply connected case, the Hodge decomposition on the complexified homotopy groups as defined by J.Morgan and R. Hain. This Hodge decomposition is shown to satisfy a purity property with respect to a weight filtration, generalizing the fact that the higher homotopy groups of a simply connected projective manifold have natural mixed Hodge structures. As a first application we construct a new family of examples of homotopy types which are not realizable as complex projective manifolds. Our second application is a formality theorem for the schematization of a complex projective manifold. Finally, we present conditions on a complex projective manifold $X$ under which the image of the Hurewitz morphism of $\pi_{i}(X) \to H_{i}(X)$ is a sub-Hodge structure.Comment: 57 pages. This new version has been globally reorganized and includes additional results and applications. Minor correction

Decomposition and the Gross-Taylor string theory

It was recently argued by Nguyen-Tanizaki-Unsal that two-dimensional pure Yang-Mills theory is equivalent to (decomposes into) a disjoint union of (invertible) quantum field theories, known as universes. In this paper we compare this decomposition to the Gross-Taylor expansion of two-dimensional pure SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in the large N limit as the string field theory of a sigma model. Specifically, we study the Gross-Taylor expansion of individual Nguyen-Tanizaki-Unsal universes. These differ from the Gross-Taylor expansion of the full Yang-Mills theory in two ways: a restriction to single instanton degrees, and some additional contributions not present in the expansion of the full Yang-Mills theory. We propose to interpret the restriction to single instanton degree as implying a constraint, namely that the Gross-Taylor string has a global (higher-form) symmetry with Noether current related to the worldsheet instanton number. We compare two-dimensional pure Maxwell theory as a prototype obeying such a constraint, and also discuss in that case an analogue of the Witten effect arising under two-dimensional theta angle rotation. We also propose a geometric interpretation of the additional terms, in the special case of Yang-Mills theories on two-spheres. In addition, also for the case of theories on two-spheres, we propose a reinterpretation of the terms in the Gross-Taylor expansion of the Nguyen-Tanizaki-Unsal universes, replacing sigma models on branched covers by counting disjoint unions of stacky copies of the target Riemann surface, that makes the Nguyen-Tanizaki-Unsal decomposition into invertible field theories more nearly manifest. As the Gross-Taylor string is a sigma model coupled to worldsheet gravity, we also briefly outline the tangentially-related topic of decomposition in two-dimensional theories coupled to gravity.Comment: 95 pages, LaTe

Cluster decomposition, T-duality, and gerby CFT's

In this paper we study CFT's associated to gerbes. These theories suffer from a lack of cluster decomposition, but this problem can be resolved: the CFT's are the same as CFT's for disconnected targets. Such theories also lack cluster decomposition, but in that form, the lack is manifestly not very problematic. In particular, we shall see that this matching of CFT's, this duality between noneffective gaugings and sigma models on disconnected targets, is a worldsheet duality related to T-duality. We perform a wide variety of tests of this claim, ranging from checking partition functions at arbitrary genus to D-branes to mirror symmetry. We also discuss a number of applications of these results, including predictions for quantum cohomology and Gromov-Witten theory and additional physical understanding of the geometric Langlands program.Comment: 61 pages, LaTeX; v2,3: typos fixed; v4: writing improved in several sections; v5: typos fixe