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In 2016, Buryak and Rossi introduced the quantum Double Ramification (DR) hierarchies which associate a quantum integrable hierarchy to any Cohomological Field Theory (CohFT). Shortly after, they introduced, in collaboration with Dubrovin and Gu\'er\'e, the quantum tau functions of these hierarchies. In this work, we study quantum tau functions associated to a specific solution called the topological solution. We provide two cohomological representations for the correlators of these tau functions. The first representation involves an analog in the quantum setting of the $A$-class of the DR-DZ equivalence. The second representation, valid for CohFT of low degree, involves the so-called $\Omega$-classes. Furthermore, we establish the string and dilaton equations for these tau functions, and present certain vanishing of their correlators.

In these lecture notes, we provide an introduction to the moduli space of Riemann surfaces, a fundamental concept in the theories of 2D quantum gravity, topological string theory, and matrix models. We begin by reviewing some basic results concerning the recursive boundary structure of the moduli space and the associated cohomology theory. We then present Witten's celebrated conjecture and its generalisation, framing it as a recursive computation of cohomological field theory correlators via topological recursion. We conclude with a discussion of JT gravity in relation to hyperbolic geometry and topological strings. These lecture notes accompanied a series of lectures at the Les Houches school "Quantum Geometry (Mathematical Methods for Gravity, Gauge Theories and Non-Perturbative Physics)" in Summer 2024., Comment: 46 pages; comments, suggestions and corrections are welcome and encouraged!

We prove a new system of relations in the tautological ring of the moduli space of curves involving stable rooted trees with level structure decorated by the top Chern class of the Hodge bundle and $\Omega$-classes and double ramification structures. In particular, this resolves a recent conjecture on these relations as well as connects with one of the two sides of the recently established DR/DZ equivalence between the integrable hierarchies constructions of Buryak and of Dubrovin--Zhang.

We establish the Miura equivalence of two integrable systems associated to a semi-simple cohomological field theory: the double ramification hierarchy of Buryak and the Dubrovin-Zhang hierarchy. This equivalence was conjectured by Buryak and further refined by Buryak, Dubrovin, Gu\'er\'e, and Rossi.

We propose a new system of conjectural relations in the tautological ring of the moduli space of curves involving stable rooted trees with level structure decorated by Hodge and {\Omega}-classes and prove these conjectures in different cases.

The general relation between Chekhov-Eynard-Orantin topological recursion and the intersection theory on the moduli space of curves, the deformation techniques in topological recursion, and the polynomiality properties with respect to deformation parameters can be combined to derive vanishing relations involving intersection indices of tautological classes. We apply this strategy to three different families of spectral curves and show they give vanishing relations for integrals involving $\Omega$-classes. The first class of vanishing relations are genus-independent and generalises the vanishings found by Johnson-Pandharipande-Tseng, and by the authors jointly with Do and Moskovsky. The two other classes of vanishing relations are of a different nature and depend on the genus., Comment: 30 pages

In this paper, we present a novel approach for computing the large genus asymptotics of intersection numbers. Our strategy is based on a resurgent analysis of the $n$-point functions of such intersection numbers, which are computed via determinantal formulae, and relies on the presence of a quantum curve. With this approach, we are able to extend the recent results of Aggarwal for Witten-Kontsevich intersection numbers with the computation of all subleading corrections, proving a conjecture of Guo-Yang, and to obtain new results on $r$-spin and Theta-class intersection numbers., Comment: 47 pages, 7 figures

Jackiw-Teitelboim dilaton-quantum-gravity localizes on a double-scaled random-matrix model, whose perturbative free energy is an asymptotic series. Understanding the resurgent properties of this asymptotic series, including its completion into a full transseries, requires understanding the nonperturbative instanton sectors of the matrix model for Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. The present work addresses this question by setting-up instanton calculus associated to eigenvalue tunneling (or ZZ-brane contributions), directly in the matrix model. In order to systematize such calculations, a nonperturbative extension of the topological recursion formalism is required -- which is herein both constructed and applied to the present problem. Large-order tests of the perturbative genus expansion validate the resurgent nature of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity, both for its free energy and for its (multi-resolvent) correlation functions. Both ZZ and FZZT nonperturbative effects are required by resurgence, and they further display resonance upon the Borel plane. Finally, the resurgence properties of the multi-resolvent correlation functions yield new and improved resurgence formulae for the large-genus growth of Weil-Petersson volumes., Comment: 63 pages, 52 plots in 16 figures, jheppub-nosort.sty; v2: minor corrections/typos

We study the spin Gromov-Witten (GW) theory of $\mathbb{P}^1$. Using the standard torus action on $\mathbb{P}^1$, we prove that the associated equivariant potential can be expressed by means of operator formalism and satisfies the 2-BKP hierarchy. As a consequence of this result, we prove the spin analogue of the GW/Hurwitz correspondence of Okounkov-Pandharipande for $\mathbb{P}^1$, which was conjectured by J. Lee. Finally, we prove that this correspondence for a general target spin curve follows from a conjectural degeneration formula for spin GW invariants that holds in virtual dimension 0., Comment: 35 pages. This version accepted for publication in J. Eur. Math. Soc

We provide an intersection-theoretic formula for the Euler characteristic of the moduli space of smooth curves. This formula reads purely in terms of Hodge integrals and, as a corollary, the standard calculus of tautological classes gives a new short proof of the Harer-Zagier formula. Our result is based on the Gauss-Bonnet formula, and on the observation that a certain parametrisation of the $\Omega$-class - the Chern class of the universal $r$-th root of the twisted log canonical bundle - provides the Chern class of the log tangent bundle to the moduli space of smooth curves. Being $\Omega$-classes by now employed in many enumerative problems, mostly recently found and at times surprisingly different from each other, we dedicate some work to produce an extensive list of their general properties: extending existing ones, finding new ones, and writing down some only known to the experts., Comment: 13 pages

This short note addresses Hodge integrals over the hyperelliptic locus. Recently Afandi computed, via localisation techniques, such one-descendant integrals and showed that they are Stirling numbers. We give another proof of the same statement by a very short argument, exploiting Chern classes of spin structures and relations arising from Topological Recursion in the sense of Eynard and Orantin. These techniques seem also suitable to deal with three orthogonal generalisations: 1. the extension to the r-hyperelliptic locus, 2. the extension to an arbitrary number of non-Weierstrass pairs of points, 3. the extension to multiple descendants., Comment: 10 pages

We advertise elementary symmetric polynomials $e_i$ as the natural basis for generating series $A_{g,n}$ of intersection numbers of genus g and n marked points. Closed formulae for $A_{g,n}$ are known for genera $0$ and $1$ -- this approach provides formulae for $g = 2,3,4$, together with an algorithm to compute the formula for any g. The claimed naturality of the e_i basis relies in the unexpected vanishing of some coefficients with a clear pattern: we conjecture that $A_{g,n}$ can have at most $g$ factors $e_i$, with $i>1$, in its expansion. This observation promotes a paradigm for more general cohomology classes. As an application of the conjecture, we find new integral representations of $A_{g,n}$, which recover expressions for the Weil-Petersson volumes in terms of Bessel functions., Comment: 41 pages

We study spin Hurwitz numbers, which count ramified covers of the Riemann sphere with a sign coming from a theta characteristic. These numbers are known to be related to Gromov-Witten theory of K\"ahler surfaces and to representation theory of the Sergeev group, and are generated by BKP tau-functions. We use the latter interpretation to give polynomiality properties of these numbers and we derive a spectral curve which we conjecture computes spin Hurwitz numbers via a new type of topological recursion. We prove that this conjectural topological recursion is equivalent to an ELSV-type formula, expressing spin Hurwitz numbers in terms of the Chiodo class twisted by the $2$-spin Witten class., Comment: 56 pages; v2: typos corrected, references updated, results unchanged

For bordered surfaces S, we develop a complete parallel between the geometry of the combinatorial Teichm\"uller space $T_S^{comb}$ equipped with Kontsevich symplectic form $\omega_K$, and then the usual Weil-Petersson geometry of Teichm\"uller space $T_S$. The basis for this is an identification of $T_S^{comb}$ with a space of measured foliations with transverse boundary conditions. We equip $T_S^{comb}$ with an analog of the Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates (defined similarly as Dehn-Thurston coordinates) and show they are Darboux for $\omega_K$ (analog of Wolpert formula). We then set up the geometric recursion of Andersen-Borot-Orantin to produce mapping class group invariants functions on $T_S^{comb}$ whose integration with respect to Kontsevich volume form satisfy topological recursion. Further we establish an analog of Mirzakhani-McShane identities, and provide applications to the study of the enumeration of multicurves with respect to combinatorial lengths and Masur-Veech volumes. The formalism allows us to provide uniform and completely geometric proofs of Witten's conjecture/Kontsevich theorem and Norbury's topological recursion for lattice point count in the combinatorial moduli space, parallel to Mirzakhani's proof of her recursion for Weil-Petersson volumes. We strengthen results of Mondello and Do on the convergence of hyperbolic geometry to combinatorial geometry along the rescaling flow, allowing us to flow systematically natural constructions on the usual Teichm\"uller space to their combinatorial analogue, such as a new derivation of the piecewise linear structure of $T_S^{comb}$ originally obtained in the work of Penner, as the limit under the flow of the smooth structure of $T_S$., Comment: 107 pages. v2: Section 1 explains better relations to previous works, in particular how Dehn-Thurston coordinates compare to Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates. The PL statement (Section 5) follows from Penner's 1982 PhD thesis, this article provides a different proof via the rescaling flow on Teichm\"uller (we added Remark 5.9 in that proof to take into account twisting numbers at the boundaries)

Goulden, Jackson and Vakil observed a polynomial structure underlying one-part double Hurwitz numbers, which enumerate branched covers of $\mathbb{CP}^1$ with prescribed ramification profile over $\infty$, a unique preimage over 0, and simple branching elsewhere. This led them to conjecture the existence of moduli spaces and tautological classes whose intersection theory produces an analogue of the celebrated ELSV formula for single Hurwitz numbers. In this paper, we present three formulas that express one-part double Hurwitz numbers as intersection numbers on certain moduli spaces. The first involves Hodge classes on moduli spaces of stable maps to classifying spaces; the second involves Chiodo classes on moduli spaces of spin curves; and the third involves tautological classes on moduli spaces of stable curves. We proceed to discuss the merits of these formulas against a list of desired properties enunciated by Goulden, Jackson and Vakil. Our formulas lead to non-trivial relations between tautological intersection numbers on moduli spaces of stable curves and hints at further structure underlying Chiodo classes. The paper concludes with generalisations of our results to the context of spin Hurwitz numbers., Comment: 20 pages. Some corollaries are added in the second version, and software numerical checks are performed

Double Hurwitz numbers enumerate branched covers of $\mathbb{CP}^1$ with prescribed ramification over two points and simple ramification elsewhere. In contrast to the single case, their underlying geometry is not well understood. In previous work by the second- and third-named authors, the double Hurwitz numbers were conjectured to satisfy a polynomiality structure and to be governed by the topological recursion, analogous to existing results concerning single Hurwitz numbers. In this paper, we resolve these conjectures by a careful analysis of the semi-infinite wedge representation for double Hurwitz numbers, by pushing further methods previously used for other Hurwitz problems. We deduce a preliminary version of an ELSV-like formula for double Hurwitz numbers, by deforming the Johnson-Pandharipande-Tseng formula for orbifold Hurwitz numbers and using properties of the topological recursion under variation of spectral curves. In the course of this analysis, we unveil certain vanishing properties of the Chiodo classes., Comment: 44 pages; v2: This version corrects the statements of Theorem 1.5 (ELSV-like formula) and Theorem 1.6 (vanishing), as well as adding new results on intersection numbers involving Chiodo classes

We study the Masur-Veech volumes $MV_{g,n}$ of the principal stratum of the moduli space of quadratic differentials of unit area on curves of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures. We show that the volumes $MV_{g,n}$ are the constant terms of a family of polynomials in $n$ variables governed by the topological recursion/Virasoro constraints. This is equivalent to a formula giving these polynomials as a sum over stable graphs, and retrieves a result of \cite{Delecroix} proved by combinatorial arguments. Our method is different: it relies on the geometric recursion and its application to statistics of hyperbolic lengths of multicurves developed in \cite{GRpaper}. We also obtain an expression of the area Siegel--Veech constants in terms of hyperbolic geometry. The topological recursion allows numerical computations of Masur--Veech volumes, and thus of area Siegel--Veech constants, for low $g$ and $n$, which leads us to propose conjectural formulas for low $g$ but all $n$. We also relate our polynomials to the asymptotic counting of square-tiled surfaces with large boundaries., Comment: 75 pages, v2: added a section on enumeration of square-tiled surfaces

In recent work, the authors derived a tropical interpretation of monotone and strictly monotone double Hurwitz numbers. In this paper, we apply the technique of tropical flows to this interpretation in order to provide a new proof of the piecewise polynomiality of these enumerative invariants. Moreover, we derive new types of wall-crossing formulae., Comment: 18 pages

We employ the $1/2$-spin tautological relations to provide a particular combinatorial identity. We show that this identity is a statement equivalent to Faber's formula for proportionalities of kappa-classes on $\mathcal{M}_g$, $g\geq 2$. We then prove several cases of the combinatorial identity, providing a new proof of Faber's formula for those cases.

We study monotone and strictly monotone Hurwitz numbers from a bosonic Fock space perspective. This yields to an interpretation in terms of tropical geometry involving local multiplicities given by Gromov-Witten invariants. Furthermore, this enables us to prove that a main result of Cavalieri-Johnson-Markwig-Ranganathan is a actually a refinement of the Gromov-Witten/Hurwitz correspondence by Okounkov-Pandharipande., Comment: 15 pages, Corrected factor in theorem 4.1

The goal of this note is to provide a very short proof of Harer-Zagier formula for the number of ways of obtaining a genus g Riemann surface by identifying in pairs the sides of a (2d)-gon, using semi-infinite wedge formalism operators., Comment: 5 pages, comments are welcome

We derive explicit formulae for the generating series of mixed Grothendieck dessins d'enfant/monotone/simple Hurwitz numbers, via the semi-infinite wedge formalism. This reveals the strong piecewise polynomiality in the sense of Goulden-Jackson-Vakil, generalising a result of Johnson, and provides a new explicit proof of the piecewise polynomiality of the mixed case. Moreover, we derive wall-crossing formulae for the mixed case. These statements specialise to any of the three types of Hurwitz numbers, and to the mixed case of any pair., Comment: 23 pages, typos corrected, section on hypergeometric tau functions expanded. Accepted in Advances in Mathematics

We prove the orbifold version of Zvonkine's $r$-ELSV formula in two special cases: the case of $r=2$ (complete $3$-cycles) for any genus $g\geq 0$ and the case of any $r\geq 1$ for genus $g=0$., Comment: 20 pages

We perform a key step towards the proof of Zvonkine's conjectural $r$-ELSV formula that relates Hurwitz numbers with completed $(r+1)$-cycles to the geometry of the moduli spaces of the $r$-spin structures on curves: we prove the quasi-polynomiality property prescribed by Zvonkine's conjecture. Moreover, we propose an orbifold generalization of Zvonkine's conjecture and prove the quasi-polynomiality property in this case as well. In addition to that, we study the $(0,1)$- and $(0,2)$-functions in this generalized case and we show that these unstable cases are correctly reproduced by the spectral curve initial data., Comment: 20 pages

We present several recent developments on ELSV-type formulae and topological recursion concerning Chiodo classes and several kind of Hurwitz numbers. The main results appeared in D. Lewanski, A. Popolitov, S. Shadrin, D. Zvonkine, "Chiodo formulas for the r-th roots and topological recursion", Lett. Math. Phys. (2016)., Comment: 18 pages, comments are welcome

We use relations in the tautological ring of the moduli spaces $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{g,n}$ derived by Pandharipande, Pixton, and Zvonkine from the Givental formula for the $r$-spin Witten class in order to obtain some restrictions on the dimensions of the tautological rings of the open moduli spaces $\mathcal{M}_{g,n}$. In particular, we give a new proof for the result of Looijenga (for $n=1$) and Buryak et al. (for $n\geq 2$) that $\dim R^{g-1}(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}) \leq n$. We also give a new proof of the result of Looijenga (for $n=1$) and Ionel (for arbitrary $n\geq 1$) that $R^{i}(\mathcal{M}_{g,n}) =0$ for $i\geq g$ and give some estimates for the dimension of $R^{i}(\mathcal{M}_{g,n})$ for $i\leq g-2$., Comment: 24 pages

We prove quasi-polynomiality for monotone and strictly monotone orbifold Hurwitz numbers. The second enumerative problem is also known as enumeration of a special kind of Grothendieck's dessins d'enfants or $r$-hypermaps. These statements answer positively two conjectures proposed by Do-Karev and Do-Manescu. We also apply the same method to the usual orbifold Hurwitz numbers and obtain a new proof of the quasi-polynomiality in this case. In the second part of the paper we show that the property of quasi-polynomiality is equivalent in all these three cases to the property that the $n$-point generating function has a natural representation on the $n$-th cartesian powers of a certain algebraic curve. These representations are the necessary conditions for the Chekhov-Eynard-Orantin topological recursion., Comment: 31 pages. Version 2: simplified the computation in section 4.2, also clarifying the deduction of the diagonal part of the A-operators

We derive a Bouchard--Eynard type topological recursion for the total descendant potential of $A_N$-singularity. Our argument relies on a certain twisted representation of a Heisenberg Vertex Operator Algebra (VOA) constructed via the periods of $A_N$-singularity. In particular, our approach allows us to prove that the topological recursion for the total descendant potential is equivalent to a certain generating set of $\mathcal{W}$-algebra constraints., Comment: 18 pages, main author is Todor Milanov, appendix by Danilo Lewanski

In this paper we present an example of a derivation of an ELSV-type formula using the methods of topological recursion. Namely, for orbifold Hurwitz numbers we give a new proof of the spectral curve topological recursion, in the sense of Chekhov, Eynard, and Orantin, where the main new step compared to the existing proofs is a direct combinatorial proof of their quasi-polynomiality. Spectral curve topological recursion leads to a formula for the orbifold Hurwitz numbers in terms of the intersection theory of the moduli space of curves, which, in this case, appears to coincide with a special case of the Johnson-Pandharipande-Tseng formula., Comment: 23 pages

We analyze Chiodo's formulas for the Chern classes related to the r-th roots of the suitably twisted integer powers of the canonical class on the moduli space of curves. The intersection numbers of these classes with psi-classes are reproduced via the Chekhov-Eynard-Orantin topological recursion. As an application, we prove that the Johnson-Pandharipande-Tseng formula for the orbifold Hurwitz numbers is equivalent to the topological recursion for the orbifold Hurwitz numbers. In particular, this gives a new proof of the topological recursion for the orbifold Hurwitz numbers., Comment: 19 pages, some corrections