In this paper, we prove a new expected dimension formula for certain rank two Brill-Noether loci with fixed special determinant. This answers a question asked by Osserman and also leads to a new and much simpler proof of a theorem of Osserman. Our result generalizes the well-known result by Bertram, Feinberg and independently Mukai on expected dimension of rank two Brill-Noether loci with canonical determinant and partially verifies a conjecture (in rank two) of Grzegorczyk and Newstead on coherent systems.

In this paper, we prove the existence portion of the Bertram-Feinberg-Mukai Conjecture for an infinite family of new cases using degeneration technique. This not only leads to a substantial improvement of known results but also develops finer tools for analyzing the moduli of rank two limit linear series which should be useful for other applications to other higher-rank Brill-Noether Problems.

We establish a polynomial recursion formula for linear Hodge integrals. It is obtained as the Laplace transform of the cut-and-join equation for the simple Hurwitz numbers. We show that the recursion recovers the Witten-Kontsevich theorem when restricted to the top degree terms, and also the combinatorial factor of the lambda_g formula as the lowest degree terms.

Inside a product of projective spaces, we try to understand which Chow classes come from irreducible subvarieties. The answer is closely related to the theory of integer polymatroids. The support of a representable class can be (partially) characterized as some integer point inside a particular polymatroid. If the class is multiplicity-free, we obtain a complete characterization in terms of representable polymatroids. We also generalize some of the results to the case of products of Grassmannians.

We develop a new technique for studying ranks of multiplication maps for linear series via limit linear series and degenerations to chains of genus-1 curves. We use this approach to prove a purely elementary criterion for proving cases of the Maximal Rank Conjecture, and then apply the criterion to several ranges of cases, giving a new proof of the case of quadrics, and also treating several families in the case of cubics. Our proofs do not require restrictions on direction of approach, so we recover new information on the locus in the moduli space of curves on which the maximal rank condition fails.