Surveys in Differential Geometry XXI
Theta functions and mirror symmetry
Mark Gross and Bernd Siebert
Abstract. This is a survey covering aspects of varied work of the authors with Mohammed Abouzaid, Paul Hacking, and Sean Keel. While theta functions are traditionally canonical sections of ample line bundles on abelian varieties, we motivate, using mirror symmetry, the idea that theta functions exist in much greater generality. This suggestion originates with the work of the late Andrei Tyurin. We outline how to construct theta functions on the degenerations of varieties constructed in previous work of the authors, and then explain applications of this construction to homological mirror symmetry and constructions of broad classes of mirror varieties.
Contents Introduction 95 1. The geometry of mirror symmetry: HMS and SYZ 97 2. Theta functions for abelian varieties and the Mumford construction 104 3. Singularities, theta functions, jagged paths 110 4. Tropical Morse trees 128 5. Applications of theta functions to mirror constructions 132 References 136
Introduction The classical subject of theta functions has a very rich history dating back to the nineteenth century. In modern algebraic geometry, they arise as sections of ample line bundles on abelian varieties, canonically defined after making some discrete choices of data. The definition of theta functions depends fundamentally on the group law, leaving the impression that they are a feature restricted to abelian varieties. However, new insights from
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 14J33. Key words and phrases. mirror symmetry, Calabi-Yau manifolds. This work was partially supported by NSF grants 0854987 and 1105871.