Department of Mathematics

This paper is based on the author's talk at the 2012 Workshop on Geometric Methods in Physics held in Bialowieza, Poland. The aim of the talk is to introduce the audience to the Eynard-Orantin topological recursion. The formalism is originated in random matrix theory. It has been predicted, and in some cases it has been proven, that the theory provides an effective mechanism to calculate certain quantum invariants and a solution to enumerative geometry problems, such as open Gromov-Witten invariants of toric Calabi-Yau threefolds, single and double Hurwitz numbers, the number of lattice points on the moduli space of smooth algebraic curves, and quantum knot invariants. In this paper we use the Laplace transform of generalized Catalan numbers of an arbitrary genus as an example, and present the Eynard-Orantin recursion. We examine various aspects of the theory, such as its relations to mirror symmetry, Gromov-Witten invariants, integrable hierarchies such as the KP equations, and the Schroedinger equations.