This paper has been withdrawn, not because of any errors (that we know of), but because rather than presenting our material as a series of 3 papers, as we originally intended, we have now combined them into one long paper, which is "A theory of generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants", arXiv:0810.5645v3, June 2009, 181 pages, and this paper has been incorporated into that.
Donaldson-Thomas invariant is expressed as the weighted Euler characteristic of the so-called Behrend (constructible) function. In \cite{Behrend} Behrend introduced a DT-type invariant for a morphism. Motivated by this invariant, we extend the motivic Hirzebruch class to naive Donaldson-Thomas type analogues. We also discuss a categorification of the DT-type invariant for a morphism from a bivariant-theoretic viewpoint, and we finally pose some related questions for further investigations.
Oberdieck and Pandharipande conjectured that the curve counting invariants of $S\times E$, the product of a $K3$ surface and an elliptic curve, is given by minus the reciprocal of the Igusa cusp form of weight 10. For a fixed primitive curve class in $S$ of square $2h-2$, their conjecture predicts that the corresponding partition functions are given by meromorphic Jacobi forms of weight $-10$ and index $h-1$. We calculate the partition functions for primitive classes of square -2 and of square 0. Our computation uses reduced Donaldson-Thomas invariants which are defined as the Behrend function…
This paper is a continuation of author's previous work arXiv:1911.07949, where we defined Donaldson-Thomas invariants of quantum Fermat threefolds. In this paper, we study the generic quantum Fermat threefold. We give explicit local models for Hilbert schemes of points as quivers with potential, and compute degree zero Donaldson-Thomas invariants. The result is expressed in terms of certain colored plane partitions.
We study a class of Riemann-Hilbert problems arising naturally in Donaldson-Thomas theory. In certain special cases we show that these problems have unique solutions which can be written explicitly as products of gamma functions. We briefly explain connections with Gromov-Witten theory and exact WKB analysis.
Gromov-Witten, Gopakumar-Vafa, and Donaldson-Thomas invariants of Calabi-Yau threefolds are compared. In certain situations, the Donaldson-Thomas invariants are very easy to handle, sometimes easier than the other invariants. This point is illustrated in several ways, especially by revisiting computations of Gopakumar-Vafa invariants by Katz, Klemm, and Vafa in a rigorous mathematical framework. This note is based on my talk at the 2004 Snowbird Conference on String Geometry.
We study motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants in the sense of Behrend-Bryan-Szendroi. A wall-crossing formula under a mutation is proved for a certain class of quivers with potentials.
We introduce geometric structures on the space of stability conditions of a three-dimensional Calabi-Yau category which encode the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the category. We explain in detail a close analogy between these structures, which we call Joyce structures, and Frobenius structures. In the second half of the paper we give explicit calculations of Joyce structures in three interesting classes of examples.
We develop a virtual cycle approach towards generalized Donaldson-Thomas theory of Calabi-Yau threefolds. Let $\mathcal{M}$ be the moduli stack of Gieseker semistable sheaves of fixed topological type on a Calabi-Yau threefold $W$. We construct an associated Deligne-Mumford stack $\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}$ with an induced semi-perfect obstruction theory of virtual dimension zero and define the generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariant of $W$ via Kirwan blowups to be the degree of the virtual cycle $[\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}]^{\mathrm{vir}}$. We show that it is invariant under deformations of the co…
In this paper, we study non-commutative projective schemes whose associated non-commutative graded algebras are finite over their centers. We study their moduli spaces of stable sheaves, and construct a symmetric obstruction theory in the Calabi-Yau-3 case. This allows us to define Donaldson-Thomas type invariants. We also discuss the simplest examples, called quantum Fermat quintic threefolds.
We show the existence of semiorthogonal decompositions of Donaldson-Thomas categories for $(-1)$-shifted cotangent derived stacks associated with $Θ$-stratifications on them. Our main result gives an analogue of window theorem for categorical DT theory, which has applications to d-critical analogue of D/K equivalence conjecture, i.e. existence of fully-faithful functors (equivalences) under d-critical flips (flops). As an example of applications, we show the existence of fully-faithful functors of DT categories for Pandharipande-Thomas stable pair moduli spaces under wall-crossing at super-rig…
We compute the motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory of the resolved conifold, in all chambers of the space of stability conditions of the corresponding quiver. The answer is a product formula whose terms depend on the position of the stability vector, generalizing known results for the corresponding numerical invariants. Our formulae imply in particular a motivic form of the DT/PT correspondence for the resolved conifold. The answer for the motivic PT series is in full agreement with the prediction of the refined topological vertex formalism.
We show that the partition functions which enumerate Donaldson-Thomas invariants of local toric Calabi-Yau threefolds without compact divisors can be expressed in terms of specializations of the Schur measure. We also discuss the relevance of the Hall-Littlewood and Jack measures in the context of BPS state counting and study the partition functions at arbitrary points of the Kaehler moduli space. This rewriting in terms of symmetric functions leads to a unitary one-matrix model representation for Donaldson-Thomas theory. We describe explicitly how this result is related to the unitary matrix …
In this paper, we give a construction of the global Chern-Simons functions for toric Calabi-Yau stacks of dimension three using strong exceptional collections. The moduli spaces of sheaves on such stacks can be identified with critical loci of these functions. We give two applications of these functions. First, we prove Joyce's integrality conjecture of generalized DT invariants on local surfaces. Second, we prove a dimension reduction formula for virtual motives, which leads to two recursion formulas for motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants.
We study the reduced Donaldson-Thomas theory of abelian threefolds using Bridgeland stability conditions. The main result is the invariance of the reduced Donaldson-Thomas invariants under all derived autoequivalences, up to explicitly given wall-crossing terms. We also present a numerical criterion for the absence of walls in terms of a discriminant function. For principally polarized abelian threefolds of Picard rank one, the wall-crossing contributions are discussed in detail. The discussion yield evidence for a conjectural formula for curve counting invariants by Bryan, Pandharipande, Yin,…
This paper studies geometric engineering, in the simplest possible case of rank one (Abelian) gauge theory on the affine plane and the resolved conifold. We recall the identification between Nekrasov's partition function and a version of refined Donaldson-Thomas theory, and study the relationship between the underlying vector spaces. Using a purity result, we identify the vector space underlying refined Donaldson-Thomas theory on the conifold geometry as the exterior space of the space of polynomial functions on the affine plane, with the (Lefschetz) SL(2)-action on the threefold side being du…
We prove two kinds of $\mathbb{Z}/2$-periodic Koszul duality equivalences for triangulated categories of matrix factorizations associated with $(-1)$-shifted cotangents over quasi-smooth affine derived schemes. We use this result to define $\mathbb{Z}/2$-periodic version of Donaldson-Thomas categories for local surfaces, whose $\mathbb{C}^{\ast}$-equivariant version was introduced and developed in the author's previous paper. We compare $\mathbb{Z}/2$-periodic DT category with the $\mathbb{C}^{\ast}$-equivariant one, and deduce wall-crossing equivalences of $\mathbb{Z}/2$-periodic DT categorie…
We introduce the notion of almost perfect obstruction theory on a Deligne-Mumford stack and show that stacks with almost perfect obstruction theories have virtual structure sheaves which are deformation invariant. The main components in the construction are an induced embedding of the coarse moduli sheaf of the intrinsic normal cone into the associated obstruction sheaf stack and the construction of a $K$-theoretic Gysin map for sheaf stacks. We show that many stacks of interest admit almost perfect obstruction theories. As a result, we are able to define virtual structure sheaves and $K$-theo…
Hilbert scheme topological invariants of plane curve singularities are identified to framed threefold stable pair invariants. As a result, the conjecture of Oblomkov and Shende on HOMFLY polynomials of links of plane curve singularities is given a Calabi-Yau threefold interpretation. The motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory developed by M. Kontsevich and the third author then yields natural motivic invariants for algebraic knots. This construction is motivated by previous work of V. Shende, C. Vafa and the first author on the large $N$ duality derivation of the above conjecture.
We review some recent progress in understanding the relation between a six dimensional topological Yang-Mills theory and the enumerative geometry of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The gauge theory localizes on generalized instanton solutions and is conjecturally equivalent to Donaldson-Thomas theory. We evaluate the partition function of the U(N) theory in its Coulomb branch on flat space by employing equivariant localization techniques on its noncommutative deformation. Geometrically this corresponds to a higher dimensional generalization of the ADHM formalism. This formalism can be extended to a gen…
We show that the categorified cohomological Hall algebra structures on surfaces constructed by Porta-Sala descend to those on Donaldson-Thomas categories on local surfaces introduced in the author's previous paper. A similar argument also shows that Pandharipande-Thomas categories on local surfaces admit actions of categorified COHA for zero dimensional sheaves on surfaces. We also construct annihilator actions of its simple operators, and show that their commutator in the K-theory satisfies the relation similar to the one of Weyl algebras. This result may be regarded as a categorification of …
Let $G\subset SL_2(C)\subset SL_3(C)$ be a finite group. We compute motivic Pandharipande-Thomas and Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the crepant resolution $Hilb^G(C^3)$ of $C^3/G$ generalizing results of Gholampour and Jiang who computed numerical DT/PT invariants using localization techniques. Our formulas rely on the computation of motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants for a special class of quivers with potentials. We show that these motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants are closely related to the polynomials counting absolutely indecomposable quiver representations over finite fields introduce…
Let $C$ be a smooth curve embedded in a smooth quasi-projective threefold $Y$, and let $Q^n_C=\textrm{Quot}_n(\mathscr I_C)$ be the Quot scheme of length $n$ quotients of its ideal sheaf. We show the identity $\tildeχ(Q^n_C)=(-1)^nχ(Q^n_C)$, where $\tildeχ$ is the Behrend weighted Euler characteristic. When $Y$ is a projective Calabi-Yau threefold, this shows that the DT contribution of a smooth rigid curve is the signed Euler characteristic of the moduli space. This can be rephrased as a DT/PT wall-crossing type formula, which can be formulated for arbitrary smooth curves. In general, the for…
Notes from the report at the Fields institute in Toronto. We introduce the Donaldson-Thomas invariants and describe the wall-crossing formulas for numerical Donaldson-Thomas invariants.
Let X be the total space of the canonical bundle of P^2. We study the generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants, defined in the work of Joyce-Song, of the moduli spaces of the 2-dimensional Gieseker semistable sheaves on X with first Chern class equal to k times the class of the zero section of X. When k=1, 2 or 3, and semistability implies stability, we express the invariants in terms of known modular forms. We prove a combinatorial formula for the invariants when k=2 in the presence of the strictly semistable sheaves, and verify the BPS integrality conjecture of Joyce-Song in some cases.
In this paper, we prove a window theorem for categorical Donaldson-Thomas theories on local surfaces as an analogue of window theorem for GIT quotient stacks. We give two applications of our main result. The first one is a proof of wall-crossing equivalences of DT categories for one dimensional stable sheave on local surfaces, under some technical condition on strictly semistable sheaves. The second one is to show the existence of fully-faithful functors from categorical PT theories to categorical MNOP theories, when the curve class is reduced. These results indicate categorifications of wall-…
We study higher rank Donaldson-Thomas invariants of a Calabi-Yau 3-fold using Joyce-Song's wall-crossing formula. We construct quivers whose counting invariants coincide with the Donaldson-Thomas invariants. As a corollary, we prove the integrality and a certain symmetry for the higher rank invariants.
Motivated by the S-duality conjecture, we study the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the 2 dimensional Gieseker stable sheaves on a threefold. These sheaves are supported on the fibers of a nonsingular threefold X fibered over a nonsingular curve. In the case where X is a K3 fibration, we express these invariants in terms of the Euler characteristic of the Hilbert scheme of points on the K3 fiber and the Noether-Lefschetz numbers of the fibration. We prove that a certain generating function of these invariants is a vector modular form of weight -3/2 as predicted in S-duality.
The ADHM construction establishes a one-to-one correspondence between framed torsion free sheaves on the projective plane and stable framed representations of a quiver with relations in the category of complex vector spaces. This paper studies the geometry of moduli spaces of representations of the same quiver with relations in the abelian category of coherent sheaves on a smooth complex projective curve $X$. In particular it is proven that this moduli space is virtually smooth and related byrelative Beilinson spectral sequence to the curve counting construction via stable pairs of Pandharipan…
Given a quiver algebra A with relations defined by a superpotential, this paper defines a set of invariants of A counting framed cyclic A-modules, analogous to rank-1 Donaldson-Thomas invariants of Calabi-Yau threefolds. For the special case when A is the non-commutative crepant resolution of the threefold ordinary double point, it is proved using torus localization that the invariants count certain pyramid-shaped partition-like configurations, or equivalently infinite dimer configurations in the square dimer model with a fixed boundary condition. The resulting partition function admits an inf…
We prove that Donaldson-Thomas type invariants are equal to weighted Euler characteristics of their moduli spaces. In particular, such invariants depend only on the scheme structure of the moduli space, not the symmetric obstruction theory used to define them. We also introduce new invariants generalizing Donaldson-Thomas type invariants to moduli problems with open moduli space. These are useful for computing Donaldson-Thomas type invariants over stratifications.
The local Donaldson-Thomas theory of curves is solved by localization and degeneration methods. The results complete a triangle of equivalences relating Gromov-Witten theory, Donaldson-Thomas theory, and the quantum cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of points of the plane. The quantum differential equation of the Hilbert scheme of points of the plane has a natural interpretation in the local Donaldson-Thomas theory of curves. The solution determines the 1-legged equivariant vertex.
This is a survey of the book arXiv:0810.5645 with Yinan Song. Let X be a Calabi-Yau 3-fold over C. The Donaldson-Thomas invariants of X are integers DT^a(t) which count stable sheaves with Chern character a on X, with respect to a Gieseker stability condition t. They are defined only for Chern characters a for which there are no strictly semistable sheaves on X. They have the good property that they are unchanged under deformations of X. Their behaviour under change of stability condition t was not understood until now. We discuss "generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants" \bar{DT}^a(t). These …
We study the equivariant Gromov-Witten and Donaldson-Thomas theories of $\mathbf{P}^2$-bundles over curves. We show the equivariant GW/DT correspondence holds to first order for certain curve classes
We compute the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of a local elliptic surface with section. We introduce a new computational technique which is a mixture of motivic and toric methods. This allows us to write the partition function for the invariants in terms of the topological vertex. Utilizing identities for the topological vertex proved in arXiv:1603.05271, we derive product formulas for the partition functions. The connected version of the partition function is written in terms of Jacobi forms. In the special case where the elliptic surface is a K3 surface, we get a derivation of the Katz-Klemm-Va…
We construct noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants associated with abelian orbifold singularities by analysing the instanton contributions to a six-dimensional topological gauge theory. The noncommutative deformation of this gauge theory localizes on noncommutative instantons which can be classified in terms of three-dimensional Young diagrams with a colouring of boxes according to the orbifold group. We construct a moduli space for these gauge field configurations which allows us to compute its virtual numbers via the counting of representations of a quiver with relations. The quiver enc…
We rephrase some well-known results in Donaldson-Thomas theory in terms of (formal families of) Frobenius type and CV-structures on a vector bundle in the sense of Hertling. We study these structures in an abstract setting, and prove a convergence result which is relevant to the case of triangulated categories. An application to physical field theory is also briefly discussed.
The aim of this paper is to study an analog of non-commutative Donaldson-Thomas theory corresponding to the refined topological vertex for small crepant resolutions of toric Calabi-Yau 3-folds. We define the invariants using dimer models and provide "wall-crossing" formulas. In particular, we get normalized generating functions which are unchanged under "wall-crossing".
A degeneration formula of Donaldson-Thomas theory on local Calabi-Yau 4-folds
Institute of Mathematics & State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Sciences, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院数学与系统科学研究院）；School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne（墨尔本大学数学与统计学院）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学数学科学学院）
We solve the part of the Donaldson-Thomas theory of Calabi-Yau threefolds which comes from super-rigid rational curves. As an application, we prove a version of the conjectural Gromov-Witten/Donaldson-Thomas correspondence for contributions from super-rigid rational curves. In particular, we prove the full GW/DT correspondence for the quintic threefold in degrees one and two.
We define a new type of Hall algebras associated e.g. with quivers with polynomial potentials. The main difference with the conventional definition is that we use cohomology of the stack of representations instead of constructible sheaves or functions. In order to take into account the potential we introduce a generalization of theory of mixed Hodge structures, related to exponential integrals. Generating series of our Cohomological Hall algebra is a generalization of the motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants introduced in arXiv:0811.2435. Also we prove a new integrality property of motivic Dona…
We study the Gromov-Witten and Donaldson-Thomas correspondence conjectured in [MNOP1, MNOP2], for trivial elliptic fibrations. In particular, we verify the Gromov-Witten and Donaldson-Thomas correspondence for primary fields when the threefold is $E \times S$ where $E$ is a smooth elliptic curve and $S$ is a smooth surface with numerically trivial canonical class.
We establish a geometric interpretation of orientifold Donaldson-Thomas invariants of $σ$-symmetric quivers with involution. More precisely, we prove that the cohomological orientifold Donaldson-Thomas invariant is isomorphic to the rational Chow group of the moduli space of $σ$-stable self-dual quiver representations. As an application we prove that the Chow Betti numbers of moduli spaces of stable $m$-tuples in classical Lie algebras can be computed numerically. We also prove a cohomological wall-crossing formula relating semistable Hall modules for different stabilities.
The notion of a Joyce structure was introduced in arXiv:1912.06504 to describe the geometric structure on the space of stability conditions of a CY3 category naturally encoded by the Donaldson-Thomas invariants. In this paper we show that a Joyce structure on a complex manifold defines a complex hyperkähler structure on the total space of its tangent bundle, and give a characterisation of the resulting hyperkähler metrics in geometric terms.
Using the degeneration formula for Donaldson-Thomas invariants, we proved a formula for the change of Donaldson-Thomas invariants of local surfaces under blowing up along points.
We study the Donaldson-Thomas type invariants for the Calabi-Yau threefold Deligne-Mumford stacks under flops. A crepant birational morphism between two smooth Calabi-Yau threefold Deligne-Mumford stacks is called an orbifold flop if the flopping locus is the quotient of weighted projective lines by a cyclic group action. We prove that the Donaldson-Thomas invariants are preserved under orbifold flops.
We discuss the GW/DT correspondence for 3-folds in both the absolute and relative cases. Descendents in Gromov-Witten theory are conjectured to be equivalent to Chern characters of the universal sheaf in Donaldson-Thomas theory. Relative constraints in Gromov-Witten theory are conjectured to correspond in Donaldson-Thomas theory to cohomology classes of the Hilbert scheme of points of the relative divisor. Independent of the conjectural framework, we prove degree 0 formulas for the absolute and relative Donaldson-Thomas theories of toric varieties.
Using a homotopy approach, we prove in this paper a conjecture of Maulik, Nekrasov, Okounkov and Pandharipande on the dimension zero Donaldson-Thomas invariants of all smooth complex threefolds.
We compute the Donaldson-Thomas invariants for two types of Calabi-Yau 3-folds. These invariants are associated to the moduli spaces of rank-2 Gieseker semistable sheaves. None of the sheaves are locally free, and their double duals are locally free stable sheaves investigated earlier by Donaldson and Thomas, Li and Qin respectively. We show that these Gieseker moduli spaces are isomorphic to some Quot-schemes. We prove a formula for Behrend's functions when torus actions present with positive dimensional fixed point sets, and use it to obtain the generating series of the relevant Donaldson-Th…
We modify the standard perfect symmetric obstruction theory for moduli spaces of simple perfect complexes, to the situation of complexes on abelian threefolds with fixed determinant and Fourier-Mukai determinant. As outcome we attach nontrivial Donaldson-Thomas invariants to moduli spaces for complexes modulo twist and translation.
We show that the generating series of generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants on the local projective plane with any positive rank is described in terms of modular forms and theta type series for indefinite lattices. In particular it absolutely converges to give a holomorphic function on the upper half plane.
We present a construction of Donaldson-Thomas invariants for three-dimensional projective Calabi-Yau Deligne-Mumford stacks. We also study the structure of these invariants for etale gerbes over such stacks.
We study the relation between Donaldson-Thomas theory of Calabi-Yau threefolds and a six-dimensional topological Yang-Mills theory. Our main example is the topological U(N) gauge theory on flat space in its Coulomb branch. To evaluate its partition function we use equivariant localization techniques on its noncommutative deformation. As a result the gauge theory localizes on noncommutative instantons which can be classified in terms of N-coloured three-dimensional Young diagrams. We give to these noncommutative instantons a geometrical description in terms of certain stable framed coherent she…
This article provides a summary of arXiv:1701.08899 and arXiv:1701.08902 where the authors studied the enumerative geometry of nested Hilbert schemes of points and curves on algebraic surfaces and their connections to threefold theories, and in particular relevant Donaldson-Thomas, Vafa-Witten and Seiberg-Witten theories.
In arXiv:0907.3784, we introduced a variant of non-commutative Donaldson-Thomas theory in a combinatorial way, which is related with topological vertex by a wall-crossing phenomenon. In this paper, we (1) provide an alternative definition in a geometric way, (2) show that the two definitions agree with each other and (3) compute the invariants using the vertex operator method, following Okounkov-Reshetikhin-Vafa and Young. The stability parameter in the geometric definition determines the order of the vertex operators and hence we can understand the wall-crossing formula in non-commutative Don…
