Publications

We discuss the chiral anomaly for a Weyl field in a curved background and show that a novel index theorem for the Lorentzian Dirac operator can be applied to describe the gravitational chiral anomaly. A formula for the total charge generated by the gravitational and gauge field background is derived in a mathematically rigorous manner. It contains a term identical to the integrand in the Atiyah-Singer index theorem and another term involving the η-invariant of the Cauchy hypersurfaces.

Related project(s):
5Index theory on Lorentzian manifolds

We associate to each stable Higgs pair \((A_0,\Phi_0)\) on a compact Riemann surface X a singular limiting configuration \((A_\infty,\Phi_\infty)\), assuming that \(\det\Phi\) has only simple zeroes. We then prove a desingularization theorem by constructing a family of solutions \((A_t,\Phi_t) \) to Hitchin's equations which converge to this limiting configuration as \(t\to\infty\). This provides a new proof, via gluing methods, for elements in the ends of the Higgs bundle moduli space and identifies a dense open subset of the boundary of the compactification of this moduli space.  

Related project(s):
32Asymptotic geometry of the Higgs bundle moduli space

An upper bound is obtained on the rank of a torus which can act smoothly and effectively on a smooth, closed, simply connected, rationally elliptic manifold. In the maximal-rank case, the manifolds admitting such actions are classified up to equivariant rational homotopy type.

Related project(s):
11Topological and equivariant rigidity in the presence of lower curvature bounds

We present a new technique that employs partial differential equations in order to explicitly construct primitives in the continuous bounded cohomology of Lie groups. As an application, we prove a vanishing theorem for the continuous bounded cohomology of SL(2,R) in degree 4, establishing a special case of a conjecture of Monod.

Related project(s):
27Invariants and boundaries of spaces

Let \(M^n, n \in \{4,5,6\}\), be a compact, simply connected n-manifold which admits some Riemannian metric with non-negative curvature and an isometry group of maximal possible rank. Then any smooth, effective action on \(M^n\) by a torus \(T^{n-2}\) is equivariantly diffeomorphic to an isometric action on a normal biquotient. Furthermore, it follows that any effective, isometric circle action on a compact, simply connected, non-negatively curved four-dimensional manifold is equivariantly diffeomorphic to an effective, isometric action on a normal biquotient.

Related project(s):
11Topological and equivariant rigidity in the presence of lower curvature bounds

We give a solution of Plateau's problem for singular curves possibly having self-intersections. The proof is based on the solution of Plateau's problem for Jordan curves in very general metric spaces by Alexander Lytchak and Stefan Wenger and hence works also in a quite general setting. However the main result of this paper seems to be new even in $\mathbb{R}^n$.

Related project(s):
24Minimal surfaces in metric spaces