We study the deformation theory of $\mathrm{G}_2$-instantons on the 7-sphere, specifically those obtained from instantons on the 4-sphere via the quaternionic Hopf fibration. We find that the pullback of the standard ASD instanton lies in a smooth, complete, 15-dimensional family of $\mathrm{G}_2$-instantons. In general, the space of infinitesimal $\mathrm{G}_2$-instanton deformations on $S^7$ is identified with three copies of the space of ASD deformations on $S^4.$
We study the deformation theory of $\mathrm{G}_2$-instantons on nearly $\mathrm{G}_2$ manifolds. There is a one-to-one correspondence between nearly parallel $\mathrm{G}_2$ structures and real Killing spinors, thus the deformation theory can be formulated in terms of spinors and Dirac operators. We prove that the space of infinitesimal deformations of an instanton is isomorphic to the kernel of an elliptic operator. Using this formulation we prove that abelian instantons are rigid. Then we apply our results to describe the deformation space of the canonical connection on the four normal homoge…
We study solutions to the Kapustin--Witten equations on ALE and ALF gravitational instantons. On any such space and for any compact structure group, we prove asymptotic estimates for the Higgs field. We then use it to prove a vanishing theorem in the case when the underlying manifold is $\mathrm{R}^4$ or $\mathrm{R}^3 \times \mathbb{S}^1$ and the structure group is $\mathrm{SU} (2)$.
Joyce, Tanaka, and Upmeier give an orientation of the $G$-instanton moduli spaces on a closed four manifolds which is canonically defined using the the $\mathrm{Spin}^c$ structure on the $4$-manifold. In this note, we describe the relation between the orientations given by other choices of the $\mathrm{Spin}^c$ structures, in a slightly more general setting. Furthermore, we give an alternative proof of the orientability of the instanton moduli spaces and an alternative construction of the orientation by Joyce, Tanaka and Upmeier, by using Witten localization of the index of a Dirac type operat…
Let $(M,Ω)$ be a closed $8$-dimensional manifold equipped with a generically non-integrable $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$-structure $Ω$. We prove that if $\mathrm{Hom}(H^{3}(M,\mathbb{Z}), \mathbb{Z}_{2}) = 0$ then the moduli space of irreducible $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$-instantons on $(M,Ω)$ with gauge group $\mathrm{SU}(r)$, $r\geq 2$, is orientable.
We show that the set of even positive definite lattices that arise from smooth, simply-connected 4-manifolds bounded by a fixed homology 3-sphere can depend on more than the ranks of the lattices. We provide two homology 3-spheres with distinct sets of such lattices, each containing a distinct nonempty subset of the rank 24 Niemeier lattices.
We study quiver gauge theories on the round and squashed seven-spheres, and orbifolds thereof. They arise by imposing $G$-equivariance on the homogeneous space $G/H=\mathrm{SU}(4)/\mathrm{SU}(3)$ endowed with its Sasaki-Einstein structure, and $G/H=\mathrm{Sp}(2)/\mathrm{Sp}(1)$ as a 3-Sasakian manifold. In both cases we describe the equivariance conditions and the resulting quivers. We further study the moduli spaces of instantons on the metric cones over these spaces by using the known description for Hermitian Yang-Mills instantons on Calabi-Yau cones. It is shown that the moduli space of i…
We study the following question: Let $(X,g)$ be a compact Gauduchon surface, $(E,h)$ be a differentiable rank $r$ vector bundle on $X$, ${\mathcal{D}}$ be a fixed holomorphic structure on $D:=\det(E)$ and $a$ be the Chern connection of the pair $(\mathcal{D},\det(h))$. Does the complex space structure on ${\mathcal{M}}_a^{\mathrm{ASD}}(E)^*$ induced by the Kobayashi-Hitchin correspondence extend to a complex space structure on the Donaldson-Uhlenbeck compactification $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_a^\mathrm{ASD}(E)$? Our results answer this question in detail for the moduli spaces of $\mathrm{SU}(2)$…
The first irreducible solution of the $\mathrm{SU} (2)$ self-duality equations on the Euclidean Schwarzschild (ES) manifold was found by Charap and Duff in 1977, only 2 years later than the famous BPST instantons on $\mathbb{R}^4$ were discovered. While soon after, in 1978, the ADHM construction gave a complete description of the moduli spaces of instantons on $\mathbb{R}^4$, the case of the Euclidean Schwarzschild manifold has resisted many efforts for the past 40 years. By exploring a correspondence between the planar Abelian vortices and spherically symmetric instantons on ES, we obtain: a …
We prove an existence theorem for gauge invariant $L^2$-normal neighborhoods of the reduction loci in the space ${\cal A}_a(E)$ of oriented connections on a fixed Hermitian 2-bundle $E$. We use this to obtain results on the topology of the moduli space ${\cal B}_a(E)$ of (non-necessarily irreducible) oriented connections, and to study the Donaldson $μ$-classes globally around the reduction loci. In this part of the article we use essentially the concept of harmonic section in a sphere bundle with respect to an Euclidean connection. Second, we concentrate on moduli spaces of instantons on defin…
Let $\mathcal{M}^{\mathrm{st}}$ ($\mathcal{M}^{\mathrm{pst}}$) be a moduli space of stable (polystable) bundles with fixed determinant on a complex surface with $b_1=1$, $p_g=0$, and let $Z\subset \mathcal{M}^{\mathrm{st}}$ be a pure $k$-dimensional analytic set. We prove a general formula for the homological boundary $δ[Z]^{BM}\in H_{2k-1}^{BM}(\partial\hat{\mathcal M}^{\mathrm{pst}},\mathbb{Z})$ of the Borel-Moore fundamental class of $Z$ in the boundary of the blow up moduli space $\hat {\mathcal M}^{\mathrm{pst}}$. The proof is based on the holomorphic model theorem (proved in a previous a…
In this paper, we provide a complete classification for all the isometric cohomogeneity one actions on unit spheres. Using this theory, we can very easily classify all the isometric cohomogeneity one actions on the Riemannian symmetric spaces $\mathbb{C}\mathrm{P}^{m-1}$ and $\mathbb{H}\mathrm{P}^{m-1}$.
We describe the infinitesimal moduli space of pairs $(Y, V)$ where $Y$ is a manifold with $G_2$ holonomy, and $V$ is a vector bundle on $Y$ with an instanton connection. These structures arise in connection to the moduli space of heterotic string compactifications on compact and non-compact seven dimensional spaces, e.g. domain walls. Employing the canonical $G_2$ cohomology developed by Reyes-Carrión and Fernández and Ugarte, we show that the moduli space decomposes into the sum of the bundle moduli $H^1_{\check{d}_A}(Y,\mathrm{End}(V))$ plus the moduli of the $G_2$ structure preserving the i…
Let $\mathcal{M}$ be a moduli space of polystable rank 2-bundles bundles with fixed determinant (a moduli space of $\mathrm{PU}(2)$-instantons) on a Gauduchon surface with $p_g=0$ and $b_1=1$. We study the holomorphic structure of $\mathcal{M}$ around a circle $\mathcal{T}$ of regular reductions. Our model space is a "blowup flip passage", which is a manifold with boundary whose boundary is a projective fibration, and whose interior comes with a natural complex structure. We prove that a neighborhood of the boundary of the blowup $\hat{\mathcal{M}}_{\mathcal{T}}$ of $\mathcal{M}$ at $\mathcal{…
Studied are moduli spaces of self dual or anti-self dual connections on noncommutative 4-manifolds, especially deformation quantization of compact spin Riemannian 4-manifolds and their isometry groups have 2-torus subgroup. Then such moduli spaces of irreducible modules associated with highestweights of compact connected semisimple Lie groups are smooth manifolds with dimension determined by their weights. This is a generalization of Atiyah-Hitchin-Singer's classical result as well as Landi-Suijlekom's noncommutative 4-sphere case.
In math.DG/9903083 (henceforth referred to as EA) we defined an integer invariant $h(Y)$ for oriented integral homology 3-spheres $Y$ which only depends on the rational homology cobordism class of $Y$ and is additive under connected sums. In this paper we establish lower bounds for $h(Y)$ when $Y$ is the boundary of a smooth, compact, oriented 4-manifold with $b_2^+=1$. As applications, we give an upper bound for how much $h$ changes under -1 surgery on knots in terms of the slice genus of the knot, and compute $h$ for a family of Brieskorn spheres. This paper contains, in revised form, most o…
We consider SU(3)-equivariant dimensional reduction of Yang-Mills theory over certain cyclic orbifolds of the 5-sphere which are Sasaki-Einstein manifolds. We obtain new quiver gauge theories extending those induced via reduction over the leaf spaces of the characteristic foliation of the Sasaki-Einstein structure, which are projective planes. We describe the Higgs branches of these quiver gauge theories as moduli spaces of spherically symmetric instantons which are SU(3)-equivariant solutions to the Hermitian Yang-Mills equations on the associated Calabi-Yau cones, and further compare them to…
Let ${\mathcal F}_λ(\mathbb{S}^n)$ be the space of tensor densities on $\mathbb{S}^n$ of degree $λ$. We consider this space as an induced module of the nonunitary spherical series of the group $\mathrm{SO}_0(n+1,1)$ and classify $(\mathrm{so}(n+1,1),\mathrm{SO}(n+1))$-sim$unitary submodules of ${\mathcal F}_λ(\mathbb{S}^n)$ as a function of $λ$.
