A personal tour through symplectic topology and geometry (Q2390100)

This excellent survey covers three important subjects in symplectic topology and geometry. First, the author explains the compactness theorem for pseudo-holomorphic curves of M. Gromov and then shows how it can be used to study the topology of symplectomorphism groups for \(S^2 \times S^2\). Then, in a second part, he discusses the convexity theorem of Atiyah-Guillemin-Sternberg for the moment map of Hamiltonian torus actions. This symplectic framework is extremely useful to understand the fundamental space of compatible complex structures over a Kähler toric orbifold. This leads the author to explain how the scalar curvature appears naturally as a moment map for the symplectomorphism group. This is related with the recent work of S.K. Donaldson and the famous Yau-Tian-Donaldson conjecture about stability of projective manifolds. Finally, the author describes how the previous results and ideas combine in the study of the symplectomorphism groups and compatible complex structures of rational complex ruled surfaces. The paper is very well written.