We study generalisations to the structure groups U(n) of the familiar (abelian) Seiberg-Witten monopole equations on a four-manifold $X$ and their moduli spaces. For $n=1$ one obtains the classical monopole equations. For $n > 1$ our results indicate that there should not be any non-trivial gauge-theoretical invariants which are obtained by the scheme `evaluation of cohomology classes on the fundamental cycle of the moduli space'. For, if $b_2^+$ is positive the moduli space should be `cobordant' to the empty space because we can deform the equations so as the moduli space of the deformed equations is generically empty. Furthermore, on Kähler surfaces with $b_2^+ > 1$, the moduli spaces become empty as soon as we perturb with a non-vanishing holomorphic 2-form.
We introduce a new class of perturbations of the Seiberg-Witten equations. Our perturbations offer flexibility in the way the Seiberg-Witten invariants are constructed and also shed a new light to LeBrun's curvature inequalities.
We prove a gluing formula for the families Seiberg-Witten invariants of families of $4$-manifolds obtained by fibrewise connected sum. Our formula expresses the families Seiberg-Witten invariants of such a connected sum family in terms of the ordinary Seiberg-Witten invariants of one of the summands, under certain assumptions on the families. We construct some variants of the families Seiberg-Witten invariants and prove the gluing formula also for these variants. One variant incorporates a twist of the families moduli space using the charge conjugation symmetry of the Seiberg-Witten equations.…
New estimates are derived concerning the behavior of self-dual hamonic 2-forms on a compact Riemannian 4-manifold with non-trivial Seiberg-Witten invariants. Applications include a vanishing theorem for certain Seiberg-Witten invariants on compact 4-manifolds of constant negative sectional curvature.
We prove that the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a rational homology sphere are determined in a very explicit fashion by the Casson-Walker invariant and the Reidemeister torsion
We establish a surgery formula for 3-dimensional Seiberg-Witten monopoles under (+1) Dehn surgery on a knot in a homology 3-sphere. (substantial revision)
Given a three-manifold with b_1=1 and a nontorsion spin^c structure, we use finite dimensional approximation to construct from the Seiberg-Witten equations two invariants in the form of a periodic pro-spectra. Various functors applied to these invariants give different flavors of Seiberg-Witten Floer homology. We also construct stable homotopy versions of the relative Seiberg-Witten invariants for certain four-manifolds with boundary.
We give a surgery formula for the torsions and Seiberg-Witten invariants associated with $Spin^c$-structures on 3-manifolds. We use the technique of Reidemeister-type torsions and their refinements.
A formula is given for the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a 4-manifold that is cut along certain kinds of 3-dimensional tori. The formula involves a Seiberg-Witten invariant for each of the resulting pieces.
We show how the families Seiberg-Witten invariants of a family of smooth $4$-manifolds can be recovered from the families Bauer-Furuta invariant via a cohomological formula. We use this formula to deduce several properties of the families Seiberg-Witten invariants. We give a formula for the Steenrod squares of the families Seiberg-Witten invariants leading to a series of mod $2$ relations between these invariants and the Chern classes of the spin$^c$ index bundle of the family. As a result we discover a new aspect of the ordinary Seiberg-Witten invariants of a $4$-manifold $X$: they obstruct t…
For a rational homology 3-sphere $Y$ with a $\spinc$ structure $\s$, we show that simple algebraic manipulations of our construction of equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology lead to a collection of variants which are topological invariants. We establish exact sequences relating them, we show that they satisfy a duality under orientation reversal, and we explain their relation to ou previous construction of equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer (co)homologies. We conjecture the equivalence of these versions of equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology with the Heegaard Floer invariants introduce…
In this paper, we investigate the Seiberg-Witten gauge theory for Seifert fibered spaces. The monopoles over these three-manifolds, for a particular choice of metric and perturbation, are completely described. Gradient flow lines between monopoles are identified with holomorphic data on an associated ruled surface, and a dimension formula for such flows is calculated.
We prove a gluing formula for Seiberg--Witten invariants which describes in particular the behaviour of the invariant under blow-up and rational blow-down.
We prove that, under a simple condition on the cohomology ring, every closed 4-manifold has mod 2 Seiberg-Witten simple type. This result shows that there exists a large class of topological 4-manifolds such that all smooth structures have mod 2 simple type, and yet some have non-vanishing (mod 2) Seiberg-Witten invariants. As corollaries, we obtain adjunction inequalities and show that, under a mild topological condition, every geometrically simply connected closed 4-manifold has the vanishing mod 2 Seiberg-Witten invariant for at least one orientation.
This is the second part of the proof of the exact traiangles in Seiberg-Witten Floer theory. We analyse the splitting and gluing of flow lines of the Chern-Simons-Dirac functional when the underlying three-manifold splits along a torus. (two corrections added)
We introduce an invariant of tuples of commutative diffeomorphisms on a 4-manifold using families of Seiberg-Witten equations. This is a generalization of Ruberman's invariant of diffeomorphisms defined using 1-parameter families of Seiberg-Witten equations. Our invariant yields an application to the homotopy groups of the space of positive scalar curvature metrics on a 4-manifold. We also study the extension problem for families of 4-manifolds using our invariant.
We extend the vanishing theorem for the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a manifold with positive scalar curvature to the case when the curvature is allowed to be negative on a set of small volume. (The precise curvature bounds are described in the paper.) The idea is to combine the method of `semigroup domination' with the Weitzenbock formula. The same curvature hypothesis implies the vanishing of the Seiberg-Witten invariant of any finite covering space. We also show that, in high dimensions, a spin manifold with mostly positive scalar curvature in fact admits a metric of positive scalar curvatu…
We construct infinitely many examples of finite volume 4-manifolds with $T^3$ ends that do not admit any cusped asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein metrics yet satisfy a strict logarithmic version of the Hitchin-Thorpe inequality due to Dai-Wei. This is done by using estimates from Seiberg-Witten theory due to LeBrun as well as a method for constructing solutions to the Seiberg-Witten equations on noncompact manifolds due to Biquard. We also use constructions coming from the $Pin^-(2)$ monopole equations to obtain a larger class of manifolds where these techniques apply.
The main results of this paper describes a formula for the Seiberg-Witten invariant of a 4-manifold which admits a nontrivial free S^1-action. We use this theorem to produce a nonsymplectic 4-manifold with a free circle action whose orbit space fibers over S^1. We also describe a 3-manifold which is not the orbit space of any symplectic 4-manifold with a free circle action. A corollary of the main theorem is a formula for the 3-dimensional Seiberg-Witten invariants of the total space of a circle bundle over a surface.
We show that for manifolds of dimension $m\geq5$, the flow of a Seiberg-Witten-type functional admits a global smooth solution on $M \times [0,\infty)$.
We introduce the gradient flow of the Seiberg-Witten functional on a compact, orientable Riemannian 4-manifold and show the global existence of a unique smooth solution to the flow. The flow converges uniquely in $C^\infty$ up to gauge to a critical point of the Seiberg-Witten functional.
We use localization formulas in the theory of equivariant cohomology to rederive the wall crossing formulas of Li-Liu and Okonek-Teleman for Seiberg-Witten invariants.
We show that solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations lead to non-trivial lower bounds for the L2-norm of the Weyl curvature of a compact Riemannian 4-manifold. These estimates are then used to derive new obstructions to the existence of Einstein metrics. These results considerably refine those previously obtained using scalar-curvature estimates alone.
This is an expansion on my talk at the Geometry and Topology conference at McMaster University, May 2004. We outline a program to relate the Heegaard Floer homologies of Ozsvath-Szabo, and Seiberg-Witten-Floer homologies as defined by Kronheimer-Mrowka. The center-piece of this program is the construction of an intermediate version of Floer theory, which exhibits characteristics of both theories.
We investigate Seiberg-Witten theory in the presence of real structures. Certain conditions are obtained so that integer valued real Seiberg-Witten invariants can be defined. In general we study properties of the real Seiberg-Witten projection map from the point of view of Fredholm map degrees.
Let $M$ be a closed oriented $4$-manifold admitting a rank-$2$ oriented foliation with a metric of leafwise positive scalar curvature. If $b^+>1$, then we will show that the Seiberg-Witten invariant vanishes for all \spinc structures.
We study the Seiberg-Witten equations on surfaces of logarithmic general type. First, we show how to construct irreducible solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations for any metric which is "asymptotic" to a Poincaré type metric at infinity. Then we compute a lower bound for the $L^{2}$-norm of scalar curvature on these spaces and give non-existence results for Einstein metrics on blow-ups.
This paper gives a detailed construction of Seiberg-Witten-Floer homology for a closed oriented 3-manifold with a non-torsion $\spinc$ structure. Gluing formulae for certain 4-dimensional manifolds splitting along an embedded 3-manifold are obtained.
I show that flat PSL(2;R)-connections on three-manifolds satisfying certain 'stability condition' can be interpreted as solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations with two spinors. This is used to construct explicit examples of the Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces. Also, I show that in this setting blow up sets satisfy certain non-trivial topological restrictions.
We prove an abstract compactness theorem for a family of generalized Seiberg-Witten equations in dimension three. This result recovers Taubes' compactness theorem for stable flat $\mathbf{P}\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbf{C})$-connections as well as the compactness theorem for Seiberg-Witten equations with multiple spinors. Furthermore, this result implies a compactness theorem for the ADHM$_{1,2}$ Seiberg-Witten equation, which partially verifies a conjecture by Doan and Walpuski.
We construct Bott-type and equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology and cohomology for 3-manifolds, in particular rational homology spheres, and prove their diffeomorphism invariance. This paper is a revised version of math.DG/9701010. Some typos are removed.
We generalize Witten's conjectured formula relating Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten invariants to manifolds of non-simple type, via equivariant localization techniques. This approach does not use the theory of non-abelian monopoles, but works directly on the Donaldson-Witten and Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces. We give a formal derivation of Witten's conjecture and its generalization, making use of an infinite dimensional version of the abelian localization theorem.
The Euler-Lagrange equations for the variational approach to the Seiberg-Witten equations always admit reducible solutions. In this context, the existence of unstable reducible solutions is achieved by assuming the existence of a parallel spinor or the negativeness of a Perelman-Yamabe type of invariant defined for a $\spinc$-structure.
In this thesis we study the Seiberg-Witten theory of an oriented homology 3-sphere. The goal is to extract topological invariants - the Seiberg-Witten invariants - by counting the solutions to the Seiberg-Witten equations on the manifold. The first question we consider is whether the Seiberg-Witten invariants depend on the geometric or analytic data involved in their definition. In the first main result of this thesis, we completely determine the dependence of the Seiberg-Witten invariants on the data involved in their definition. In particular, we show that even for the simplest manifold, the…
In this paper, we focus on the moduli space of Seiberg-Witten equation on non-compact manifold with periodic end. Suppose that the scalar curvature on the periodic end is identically zero and the topological conditions: the first de-Rham cohomology and the self-dual cohomology restricting on the periodic end vanish. Then, we will show that the moduli space of the perturbed Seiberg-Witten equation is compact.
The monopole map defines an element in an equivariant stable cohomotopy group refining the Seiberg-Witten invariant. This first of two articles presents the details of the definition of the stable cohomotopy invariant and discusses its relation to the integer valued Seiberg-Witten invariant.
We give the definition of the Seiberg-Witten-Floer homology group for a homology 3-sphere. Its Euler characteristic number is a Casson-type invariant. For a four-manifold with boundary a homology sphere, a relative Seiberg-Witten invariant is defined taking values in the Seiberg-Witten-Floer homology group, these relative Seiberg-Witten invariants are applied to certain homology spheres bounding Stein surfaces.
Seiberg-Witten theory is used to obtain new obstructions to the existence of Einstein metrics on 4-manifolds with conical singularities along an embedded surface. In the present article, the cone angle is required to be of the form 2(pi)/p, where p is a positive integer, but we conjecture that similar results will also hold in greater generality.
We establish a canonical gluing procedure for Seiberg-Witten monopoles on the two pieces of a closed, oriented 4-manifold X which is split along a 3-dimensional closed, oriented submanifold. We only assume that the (unperturbed) character variety is Kuranishi-smooth and the limiting maps are transversal -- then we will be able to glue regular monopoles over the irreducible points of the character variety.
We show that the mod 2 Seiberg-Witten invariant can be determined for a spin manifold X which has the same homology groups as the 4-torus. The value depends on the structure of the cohomology ring of X, and in particular on the 4-fold cup product on H^1(X). We also consider some examples of homology tori.
We determine the Seiberg-Witten-Floer homology groups of the three-manifold which is the product of a surface of genus $g \geq 1$ times the circle, together with its ring structure, for spin-c structures which are non-trivial on the three-manifold. We give applications to computing Seiberg-Witten invariants of four-manifolds which are connected sums along surfaces and also we reprove the higher type adjunction inequalities previously obtained by Oszváth and Szabó.
We prove Witten's formula relating the Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten series modulo powers of degree $c+2$, with $c=-{1/4}(7χ+11σ)$, for four-manifolds obeying some mild conditions, where $χ$ and $σ$ are their Euler characteristic and signature. We use the moduli space of SO(3) monopoles as a cobordism between a link of the Donaldson moduli space of anti-self-dual SO(3) connections and links of the moduli spaces of Seiberg-Witten monopoles. Gluing techniques allow us to compute contributions from Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces lying in the first (or `one-bubble') level of the Uhlenbeck compactific…
We construct equivariant and Bott-type Seiberg-Witten Floer homology and cohomology for 3-manifolds, in particular rational homology spheres, and prove their diffeomorphism invariance. We present several versions of the equivariant theory: the singular version, the de Rham version and the Cartan version, with the first playing the most important role. These versions are shown to be equivalent to each other. A few typos are removed.
Let $M$ a compact connected orientable 4-manifold. We study the space $Ξ$ of $Spin^c$-structures of fixed fundamental class, as an infinite dimensional principal bundle on the manifold of riemannian metrics on $M$. In order to study perturbations of the metric in Seiberg-Witten equations, we study the transversality of universal equations, parametrized with all $Spin^c$-structures $Ξ$. We prove that, on a complex Kähler surface, for an hermitian metric $h$ sufficiently close to the original Kähler metric, the moduli space of Seiberg-Witten equations relative to the metric $h$ is smooth of the …
We explain a new phenomenon on non compact complete Riemannian four manifolds, where d^+ image of one forms can not exhaust densely on L^2 self dual forms on each compact subset, if a certain L^2 self dual harmonic form exists. This leads to construct a new functional analytic framework on the Seiberg-Witten map.
By using the gluing formula of the Seiberg-Witten invariant, we compute the Yamabe invariant Y(X) of 4-manifolds X obtained by performing surgeries along points, circles or tori on compact Kaehler surfaces. For instance, if M is a compact Kaehler surface of nonnegative Kodaira dimension, and N is a smooth closed oriented 4-manifold with b_2^+(N)=0 and Y(N)>= 0, then we show that Y(M # N)=Y(M).
I describe a relation (mostly conjectural) between the Seiberg-Witten monopoles, Fueter sections, and G2 instantons. In the last part of this article I gathered some open questions connected with this relation.
In the paper we formulate and derive the family blowup formula of family Seiberg-Witten invariants. The formula has been used in the enumerative application of counting singular curves on algebraic surfaces. We first give a topological derivation of the formula by using family index theorem. Then we define the algebraic (family) Seiberg-Witten invariants for algebraic surfaces and then give an algebraic derivation of the family blowup formula for the algebraic family Seiberg-Witten invariants.
We use rudiments of the Seiberg-Witten gluing theory for trivial circle bundles over a Riemann surface to relate de Seiberg-Witten basic classes of two $4$-manifolds containing Riemann surfaces of the same genus and self-intersection zero with those of the $4$-manifold resulting as a connected sum along the surface. We study examples in which this is enough to describe completely the basic classes.
These notes provide an introductory exposition of the Seiberg-Witten gauge theory. They collect the material presented in a series of seminars given by the author at the University of Milano.
Among all conformal classes of Riemannian metrics on ${\Bbb CP}_2$, that of the Fubini-Study metric is shown to have the largest Yamabe constant. The proof, which involves perturbations of the Seiberg-Witten equations, also yields new results on the total scalar curvature of almost-Kähler 4-manifolds.
It is shown that the non-homogeneous Dirichlet and Neuman problems for the $2^{nd}$-order Seiberg-Witten equation admit a regular solution once the $\mathcal{H}$-condition (described in the article) is satisfied. The approach consist in applying the elliptic techniques to the variational setting of the Seiberg-Witten equation.
