Vivek Shende

We study 1-parameter families of holomorphic curves with Lagrangian boundary in Calabi–Yau 3-folds. We show that the expected codimension one phenomena can be organized to match the HOMFLYPT skein relations from quantum topology. It follows that counting holomorphic curves by the class of their boundaries in the skein module of the Lagrangian gives a deformation invariant result. This is a mathematically rigorous incarnation of Witten’s assertion that boundaries of open topological strings create line defects in Chern–Simons theory [42]. Using this theory, we rigorously establish the following prediction of Ooguri and Vafa: the coefficients of the HOMFLYPT polynomial of a link in the three-sphere count the holomorphic curves in the resolved conifold, with boundary on (a push-off of) the link conormal.

Given a link in the three-sphere, its Lagrangian conormal can be transplanted to the “resolved conifold,” which is a certain noncompact Calabi–Yau threefold. Here we show that, as predicted by Ooguri and Vafa using string theoretic arguments, the count of all holomorphic curves in the resolved conifold ending on this Lagrangian is, appropriately understood, the collection of the HOMFLYPT invariants of all colorings of the link. This generalizes our previous work, Skeins on branes, arXiv:1901.08027, which identified a curve count that captures the uncolored case. The main ingredient in the present work is a skein-valued multiple cover formula for an isolated embedded annulus.

We develop a local-to-global formalism for constructing Calabi–Yau structures for global sections of constructible sheaves or cosheaves of differential graded categories. The required data (a morphism between the sheafified Hochschild homology with the topological dualizing sheaf, satisfying a nondegeneracy condition) specializes to the classical notion of orientation when applied to the category of local systems on a manifold. We apply this construction to the cosheaves on arboreal skeleta arising in the microlocal approach to the A-model.

We count holomorphic curves in complex 3-space with boundaries on three special Lagrangian solid tori. The count is valued in the HOMFLYPT skein module of the union of the tori. Using 1-parameter families of curves at infinity, we derive three skein valued operator equations which must annihilate the count, and which dequantize to a mirror of the geometry. We show algebraically that the resulting equations determine the count uniquely, and that the result agrees with the topological vertex from topological string theory.

We develop a set of tools for doing computations in and of (partially) wrapped Fukaya categories. In particular, we prove (1) a descent (cosheaf) property for the wrapped Fukaya category with respect to so-called Weinstein sectorial coverings and (2) that the partially wrapped Fukaya category of a Weinstein manifold with respect to a mostly Legendrian stop is generated by the cocores of the critical handles and the linking disks to the stop. We also prove (3) a ‘stop removal equals localization’ result, and (4) that the Fukaya–Seidel category of a Lefschetz fibration with Liouville fiber is generated by the Lefschetz thimbles. These results are derived from three main ingredients, also of independent use: (5) a Künneth formula (6) an exact triangle in the Fukaya category associated to wrapping a Lagrangian through a Legendrian stop at infinity and (7) a geometric criterion for when a pushforward functor between wrapped Fukaya categories of Liouville sectors is fully faithful.

The spectral side of the (conjectural) Betti geometric Langlands correspondence concerns sheaves on the character stack of an algebraic curve; in particular, the categories in question are manifestly invariant under deformations of the curve. By contrast the same invariance is certainly not manifest, and is presently not known, for their automorphic counterparts, in particular because the singularities of the global nilpotent cone may vary significantly with the complex structure of the curve. Here we establish the corresponding invariance statement for the category of microsheaves on the open subset of stable Higgs bundles on nonstacky components where all semistables are stable, e.g. for coprime rank and degree or for a punctured curve with generic parabolic weights. The proof uses the known global symplectic geometry of the Higgs moduli space to invoke recent results on the invariance of microlocal sheaves.

Using the microlocal theory of sheaves, we associate a category to each Weinstein manifold. By constructing a microlocal specialization functor, we show that exact Lagrangians give objects in our category, and that the category is invariant under Weinstein homotopy.

When a Gromov limit of embedded holomorphic curves is constant on some component of the domain, the non-collapsed component must exhibit some degenerate behavior at the attaching points, such as high multiplicity or vanishing of the holomorphic derivative. Here we show the same holds for maps which are only approximately J-holomorphic.

A typical large complex-structure limit for mirror symmetry consists of toric varieties glued to each other along their toric boundaries. Here we construct the mirror large volume limit space as a Weinstein symplectic manifold. We prove homological mirror symmetry: the category of coherent sheaves on the first space is equivalent to the Fukaya category of the second. Our equivalence intertwines the Viterbo restriction maps for a generalized pair-of-pants cover of the symplectic manifold with the restriction of coherent sheaves for a certain affine cover of the algebraic variety. We deduce a posteriori a local-to-global principle conjectured by Seidel -- certain diagrams of Viterbo restrictions are cartesian -- by passing Zariski descent through our mirror symmetry result.