Sesquicuspidal curves, scattering diagrams, and symplectic nonsqueezing

Abstract: We construct a large new family of rational algebraic curves in the complex projective plane with a (p,q) cusp singularity. More precisely, we classify all such pairs (p,q) for curves which are rigid (in a suitable sense), finding a phase transition from discrete to continuous as the ratio p/q crosses the fourth power of the golden ratio. In particular, for many values of (p,q), our curves solve the minimal degree problem for plane curves with a (p,q) cusp singularity. Our technique relies on (i) explicit bijections between curves in log Calabi-Yau surfaces and curves in nontoric blowups of toric surfaces, (ii) the tropical vertex group and its connections with relative Gromov--Witten invariants, and (iii) recent positivity results for scattering diagrams. As our main application, we completely solve the stabilized symplectic embedding problem for four-dimensional ellipsoids into the four-dimensional round ball. The answer is neatly encoded in a single piecewise smooth function which transitions from an infinite Fibonacci staircase to an explicit rational function. Many of our results also extend to other target spaces, e.g. del Pezzo surfaces and more general rational surfaces.