Cubics, Integrable Systems, and Calabi-Yau Threefolds

Abstract

In this work we construct an analytically completely integrable Hamiltonian system which is canonically associated to any family of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The base of this system is a moduli space of gauged Calabi-Yaus in the family, and the fibers are Deligne cohomology groups (or intermediate Jacobians) of the threefolds. This system has several interesting properties: the multivalued sections obtained as Abel-Jacobi images, or ``normal functions'', of a family of curves on the generic variety of the family, are always Lagrangian; the natural affine coordinates on the base, which are used in the mirror correspondence, arise as action variables for the integrable system; and the Yukawa cubic, expressing the infinitesimal variation of Hodge structure in the family, is essentially equivalent to the symplectic structure on the total space.