Geometrical interpretation of the topological recursion, and integrable string theories

Abstract

Symplectic invariants introduced in math-ph/0702045 can be computed for an arbitrary spectral curve. For some examples of spectral curves, those invariants can solve loop equations of matrix integrals, and many problems of enumerative geometry like maps, partitions, Hurwitz numbers, intersection numbers, Gromov-Witten invariants... The problem is thus to understand what they count, or in other words, given a spectral curve, construct an enumerative geometry problem. This is what we do in a semi-heuristic approach in this article. Starting from a spectral curve, i.e. an integrable system, we use its flat connection and flat coordinates, to define a family of worldsheets, whose enumeration is indeed solved by the topological recursion and symplectic invariants. In other words, for any spectral curve, we construct a corresponding string theory, whose target space is a submanifold of the Jacobian.