
Tropical Wave-Fronts & Nodal Tangles
Joel Schmitz, from the Université de Neuchâtel, presents this symplectic geometry seminar talk on toric fibrations of symplectic 4-manifolds. He addresses the fact that a given symplectic 4-manifold can admit several distinct toric fibrations, which appear as boundary points in the moduli space of almost toric fibrations. The core claim under discussion, attributed to Margaret Symington, is that all toric fibrations of a fixed manifold lie in the same connected component of this moduli space. Schmitz sketches an argument for this using tools from tropical geometry, including tropical wave-fronts and nodal curve configurations referenced in the talk's title. Delivered as part of the IAS/Princeton/Montreal/Paris/Tel-Aviv Symplectic Geometry Zoominar series, the talk is aimed at researchers already familiar with almost toric fibrations and moduli spaces, moving through definitions quickly before turning to the sketch of the main result.