Computing a categorical Gromov-Witten invariant

In his 2005 paper "The Gromov-Witten potential associated to a TCFT" Kevin Costello described a procedure for recovering an analogue of the Gromov-Witten potential directly out of a cyclic A-inifinity algebra or category. Applying his construction to the derived category of sheaves of a complex projective variety provides a definition of higher genus B-model Gromov-Witten invariants, independent of the BCOV formalism. This has several advantages. Due to the categorical invariance of these invariants, categorical mirror symmetry automatically implies classical mirror symmetry to all genera. Also, the construction can be applied to other categories like categories of matrix factorization, giving a direct definition of FJRW invariants, for example.

In my talk I shall describe the details of the computation (joint with Junwu Tu) of the invariant, at $g = 1$, $n = 1$, for elliptic curves. The result agrees with the predictions of mirror symmetry, matching classical calculations of Dijkgraaf. It is the first non-trivial computation of a categorical Gromov-Witten invariant.

Date

Speakers

Andrei Căldăraru

Affiliation

University of Wisconsin, Madison