On stringy Euler characteristics of Clifford non-commutative varieties (Q2417758)

To an object in string theory, one assigns an ideal generated by monomials defining toric manifolds which turn out to be Calabi-Yau manifolds. Toric manifolds can be explicitly studied by their explicit definition, and Calabi-Yau manifolds have nice properties which can be given numerical invariants. The starting point of this article is the concept of mirror symmetry in superstring theory resulting in a relationship of duality between the corresponding families of Calabi-Yau manifolds. Two simplifications of the nonlinear sigma models of superstring theory are given, the A- and B-twists depending only on the symplectic and the complex structure respectively. A mirror symmetric pair $(X,Y)$ consists of Calabi-Yau manifolds $X$ and $Y$, with Kähler data, that give two superconformal field theories that differ by a twist. This leads to mathematical properties of the pair, and in particular, the $(p,q)$-stringy Hodge numbers of $X$ and the $(\dim Y-p,q)$-stringy Hodge numbers of $Y$ are predicted to be equal. Kontsevich gave the Homology mirror symmetry conjecture stating that the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on $X$ and the Fukaya category of $Y$ with the appropriate symplectic structure are equivalent. There are interesting examples when a single family of Calabi-Yau varieties $\{Y\}$ has two different mirror families $\{X_1\}$ and $\{X_2\},$ and the the two are said to be double mirrors of each other because they are mirrors of mirrors. Double mirrors predict mathematical statements that can be checked rigorously on examples. In particular, the complex moduli of $\{X_1\}$ and $\{X_2\}$ are identified and the the derived categories of the coherent sheaves on the two families are expected to be equivalent. As in the toric setting, some of the double mirrors are birational Calabi-Yau varieties. More interesting examples appear in the setting of nonabelian gauged linear sigma models and Homological Projective duality. E.g., the Pfaffian-Grassmannian correspondence given by Z. Lie is verified to give derived equivalent non-birational Calabi-Yau varieties. Early examples of Homological Projective Duality (HDP) is that of complete intersection of quadrics. This is the main focus of the present article: Let $V$ be a complex vector space of dimension $2n$. Kuznetsov considered a Lefshetz decomposition of the derived category of $\mathbb P(V)$ with respect to the double Veronese embedding $\mathbb P(V)\rightarrow\mathbb P(\operatorname{Sym}^2V).$ The noncommutative algebraic variety $(\mathbb P(\operatorname{Sym}^2V^\ast),\mathcal B_0)$ with $\mathcal B_0$ the universal sheaf of even parts of Clifford algebras over $\mathbb P(\operatorname{Sym}^2 V^\ast),$ is HPD to $\mathbb P(V)$ with respect to this Lefshetz decomposition. For a generic $n$-dimensional vector subspace $W\subset\operatorname{Sym}^2 V^\ast$ this gives an equivalence $\mathcal D^b(Y_W)\cong\mathcal D^b(\mathbb PW,\mathcal B_0)$ where $Y\subset\mathbb PV$ is the complete intersection of quadrics defined by $W$ and $\mathcal D^b(\mathbb PW,\mathcal B_0)$ is the derived category of sheaves of $\mathcal B_0$-modules on $\mathbb PW.$ The authors call the sheaves of algebras $\mathcal B_0$ on $\mathbb PW$ Clifford noncommutative varieties, and interpret results of Kuznetsov as the statement that $(\mathbb P W,\mathcal B_0)$ and $Y_W$ are double mirror to each other. It then makes sense to assign an Euler characteristic to the non-commutative Clifford variety $(\mathbb PW,\mathcal B_0)$ and to conjecture it to be the same as the Euler characteristic of the complete intersection $Y_W.$ The relative $\operatorname{Spec}$ of the center $\mathcal B_0$ of a Clifford noncommutative variety $(\mathbb PW,\mathcal B_0)$ gives a double cover $Z=Z_W\rightarrow\mathbb PW,$ and the sheaf of algebras $\mathbb B_0$ is a sheaf of Azumaya algebras over a Zariski open subset of $Z$. The authors observe that $Z$ is singular for $n>3$ and they view $(\mathbb PW,\mathcal B_0)$ as a noncommutative crepant resolution of singularities of $Z$ equipped with a Brauer class to account for the Azumaya algebras. To define Hodge numbers of $(\mathbb PW,\mathcal B_0)$ the authors make a change of discrepancies in Batyrev's stringy Hodge numbers of $Z$. These are defined for varieties with log-terminal singularities, and the authors prove that $Z$ in fact has Gorenstein singularities. The invariants defined this way are called Clifford-stringy Euler characteristics. This makes it possible to prove the main result of the article which says that the Clifford-stringy Euler characteristic $\chi_{cst}(Z)$ equals the Euler characteristic of the complete intersection. The authors recall the definition of complete quadrics and their moduli space $\widehat{\mathbb PW}.$ They use this to construct a partial resolution of singularities $\theta:\widehat Z\rightarrow Z$ where $\widehat Z$ has explicitly written toroidal singularities. The singularities of $\widehat Z$ are resolved in a systematic way by combinatorial constructions, and this gives a toroidal resolution $\mu:\widetilde Z\rightarrow\widehat Z$. The article includes the calculation of the discrepancies of exceptional divisors and the Clifford-stringy Euler characteristics of $Z,$ and the authors give explicit computations of the Euler characteristics of strata of fibres of $\theta.$ The Clifford-stringy Euler characteristic of $Z$ is investigated by analysing the local distributions of singular points for which a combinatorial expression of the formula of the local contribution is given. Several examples are computed to find a $1,2,1,2,\dots$ pattern. The article ends with several comments and statements of open questions, it contains elementary definitions of all mathematical concepts, and in particular of the invariants. Its application of noncommutative geometry in the resolutions, and the implicit theory of noncommutative orders, are explicitly given, and this makes the article self-contained and well written.