Galois Groups in Enumerative Geometry and Applications

In the first part of this paper we try to explain to a general mathematical audience some of the remarkable web of conjectures linking representations of Galois groups with algebraic geometry, complex analysis and discrete subgroups of Lie groups. In the second part we briefly review some limited recent progress on these conjectures.

We give an elementary introduction to our papers relating the geometry of rational homogeneous varieties to representation theory. We also describe related work and recent progress.

This is an essay to accompany the author's lecture at the introductory workshop on `Nonabelian fundamental groups in arithmetic geometry' at the Newton Institute, Cambridge in July, 2009.

Enumerative Geometry is concerned with the number of solutions to a structured system of polynomial equations, when the structure comes from geometry. Enumerative real algebraic geometry studies real solutions to such systems, particularly a priori information on their number. Recent results in this area have, often as not, uncovered new and unexpected phenomena, and it is far from clear what to expect in general. Nevertheless, some themes are emerging. This comprehensive a...

This is an introduction to: (1) the enumerative geometry of rational curves in equivariant symplectic resolutions, and (2) its relation to the structures of geometric representation theory. Written for the 2015 Algebraic Geometry Summer Institute.

The Galois/monodromy group of a family of geometric problems or equations is a subtle invariant that encodes the structure of the solutions. Computing monodromy permutations using numerical algebraic geometry gives information about the group, but can only determine it when it is the full symmetric group. We give numerical methods to compute the Galois group and study it when it is not the full symmetric group. One algorithm computes generators while the other gives informati...

This is the expanded version of my talk at the workshop "Groups of Automorphisms in Birational and Affine Geometry", October 29--November 3, 2012, Levico Terme, Italy. The first section is focused on Jordan groups in abstract setting, the second on that in the settings of automorphisms groups and groups of birational self-maps of algebraic varieties. The appendix is the expanded version of my notes on open problems posted on the site of this workshop. It contains formulations...

A survey written for the upcoming "Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics".

This work is a collection of old and new aplications of Galois cohomology to the clasification of algebraic and arithmetical objects.

We introduce a new technique to prove connectivity of subsets of covering spaces (so called inductive connectivity), and apply it to Galois theory of problems of enumerative geometry. As a model example, consider the problem of permuting the roots of a complex polynomial $f(x) = c_0 + c_1 x^{d_1} + \ldots + c_k x^{d_k}$ by varying its coefficients. If the GCD of the exponents is $d$, then the polynomial admits the change of variable $y=x^d$, and its roots split into necklaces...