Asymptotics and Dimensional Dependence of the Number of Critical Points of Random Holomorphic Sections

Benjamin Baugher

Published 2007-03-27, updated 2008-02-24Version 3

We prove two conjectures from [M. R. Douglas, B. Shiffman and S. Zelditch, Critical points and supersymmetric vacua, II: Asymptotics and extremal metrics. J. Differential Geom. 72 (2006), no. 3, 381-427] concerning the expected number of critical points of random holomorphic sections of a positive line bundle. We show that, on average, the critical points of minimal Morse index are the most plentiful for holomorphic sections of ${\mathcal O}(N) \to \CP^m$ and, in an asymptotic sense, for those of line bundles over general K\"ahler manifolds. We calculate the expected number of these critical points for the respective cases and use these to obtain growth rates and asymptotic bounds for the total expected number of critical points in these cases. This line of research was motivated by landscape problems in string theory and spin glasses.