We study doubly-periodic instantons, i.e. instantons on the product of a 1-dimensional complex torus T with a complex line C, with quadratic curvature decay. We determine the asymptotic behaviour of these instantons, constructing new asymptotic invariants. We show that the underlying holomorphic bundle extends to TxP1. The converse statement is also true, namely a holomorphic bundle on TxP1 which is flat on the torus at infinity, and satisfies a stability condition, comes from a doubly-periodic instanton. Finally, we study the hyperkahler geometry of the moduli space of doubly-periodic instantons, and prove that the Nahm transform previously defined by the second author is a hyperkahler isometry with the moduli space of certain meromorphic Higgs bundles on the dual torus.
We present the Nahm transform of the doubly-periodic instantons introduced in math.DG/9909069, converting them into certain meromorphic solutions of Hitchin's equations over an elliptic curve.
We construct finite energy instanton connection on $R^4$ which are periodic in two directions via an analogue of the Nahm transform for certain singular solutions of Hitchin's equations defined over a 2-torus.
This work concerns the study of certain finite-energy solutions of the anti-self-dual Yang-Mills equations on Euclidean 4-dimensional space which are periodic in two directions, so-called doubly-periodic instantons. We establish a circle of ideas involving equivalent analytical and algebraic-geometric descriptions of these objects. In the first introductory chapter we provide an overview of the problem and state the main results to be proven in the thesis. In chapter 2, we study the asymptotic behaviour of the connections we are concerned with, and show that the coupled Dirac operator is Fredh…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of doubly periodic instantons with square-integrable curvature. Then, we establish the equivalence given by the Nahm transform between the doubly periodic instantons with square integrable curvature and the wild harmonic bundles on the dual torus.
We present a classification of SU(2) instantons on $T^2\times\mathbb{R}^2$ according to their asymptotic behaviour. We then study the existence of such instantons for different values of the asymptotic parameters, describing explicitly the moduli space for unit charge.
In this expository review we discuss various aspects of gauge theory. While the focus is on mathematics, wherever possible we make contact with theoretical high energy physics. Particular emphasis is placed on instantons and monopoles, which admit physical interpretation, and yield interesting and nontrivial mathematics. We give a clear and essentially self-contained exposition of the mathematical structure of the Seiberg-Witten monopole equations. Other topics include Donaldson's theorem on moduli spaces of monopoles, compactification of spaces of ASD connections, The Abelian monopole equatio…
We construct the moduli space of contact instantons, an analogue of Yang-Mills instantons defined for contact metric $5$-manifolds and initiate the study of their structure. In the $K$-contact case we give sufficient conditions for smoothness of the moduli space away from reducible connections and show the dimension is given by the index of an operator elliptic transverse to the Reeb foliation. The moduli spaces are shown to be Kähler when the $5$-manifold $M$ is Sasakian and hyperKähler when $M$ is transverse Calabi-Yau. We show how the transverse index can be computed in various cases, in pa…
We study two instanton correction problems of Hitchin's moduli spaces along with their wall crossing formulas. The hyperkahler metric of a Hitchin's moduli space can be put into an instanton-corrected form according to physicists Gaiotto, Moore and Neitzke. The problem boils down to the construction of a set of special coordinates which can be constructed as Fock-Goncharov coordinates associated with foliations of quadratic differentials on a Riemann surface. A wall crossing formula of Kontsevich and Soibelman arises both as a crucial consistency condition and an effective computational tool. …
We show that the moduli space $M$ of holomorphic vector bundles on $CP^3$ that are trivial along a line is isomorphic (as a complex manifold) to a subvariety in the moduli of rational curves of the twistor space of the moduli space of framed instantons on $\R^4$, called the space of twistor sections. We then use this characterization to prove that $M$ is equipped with a torsion-free affine connection with holonomy in $Sp(2n,\C)$.
I will explain my joint paper `Instantons moduli spaces and W-algebras' with A.Braverman, M.Finkelberg, arXiv:1406.2381. I will concentrate on the geometric part, that is a study of perverse sheaves on instanton moduli spaces. I place a particular emphasize on the hyperbolic restriction functor and stable envelop, which are our key tools, and appear also in other situations in geometric representation theory. These are lecture notes for a course in 2015 PCMI.
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…
We present ADHM-Nahm data for instantons on the Taub-NUT space and encode these data in terms of Bow Diagrams. We study the moduli spaces of the instantons and present these spaces as finite hyperkahler quotients. As an example, we find an explicit expression for the metric on the moduli space of one SU(2) instanton. We motivate our construction by identifying a corresponding string theory brane configuration. By following string theory dualities we are led to supersymmetric gauge theories with impurities.
We construct the moduli space of Spin(7)-instantons on a hermitian complex vector bundle over a closed 8-dimensional manifold endowed with a (possibly non-integrable) Spin(7)-structure. We find suitable perturbations that achieve regularity of the moduli space, so that it is smooth and of the expected dimension over the irreducible locus.
This paper establishes that the Nahm transform sending spatially periodic instantons (instantons on the product of the real line and a three-torus) to singular monopoles on the dual three-torus is indeed a bijection as suggested by the heuristic. In the process, we show how the Nahm transform intertwines to a Fourier-Mukai transform via Kobayashi-Hitchin correspondences. We also prove existence and non-existence results.
Gieseker-Nakajima moduli spaces $M_{k}(n)$ parametrize the charge $k$ noncommutative $U(n)$ instantons on ${\bf R}^{4}$ and framed rank $n$ torsion free sheaves $\mathcal{E}$ on ${\bf C\bf P}^{2}$ with ${\rm ch}_{2}({\mathcal{E}}) = k$. They also serve as local models of the moduli spaces of instantons on general four-manifolds. We study the generalization of gauge theory in which the four dimensional spacetime is a stratified space $X$ immersed into a Calabi-Yau fourfold $Z$. The local model ${\bf M}_{k}({\vec n})$ of the corresponding instanton moduli space is the moduli space of charge $k$ …
Let $X$ be a closed $6-$dimensional manifold with a half-closed $SU(3)-$structure. On the product manifold $X\times S^{1}$, with respect to the product $G_{2}-$structure and on a pullback vector bundle from $X$, we show that any $G_{2}-$instanton is equivalent to a Hermitian Yang-Mills connection on $X$ via a "broken gauge". This result reveals the topological type of the moduli of $G_{2}-$instantons on $X\times S^{1}$. In dimension $8$, similar result holds for moduli of $Spin(7)-$instantons. A generalization and an example are given.
We investigate Yang--Mills instanton theory over four dimensional asymptotically locally flat (ALF) geometries, including gravitational instantons of this type, by exploiting the existence of a natural smooth compactification of these spaces introduced by Hausel--Hunsicker--Mazzeo. First referring to the codimension 2 singularity removal theorem of Sibner--Sibner and Rade we prove that given a smooth, finite energy, self-dual SU(2) connection over a complete ALF space, its energy is congruent to a Chern--Simons invariant of the boundary three-manifold if the connection satisfies a certain holo…
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 $(M,Ω)$ 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.
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.
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…
This work is a continuation of the former paper in which principal bundles are given by compact spin toric manifolds and compact connected semisimple Lie groups. In this paper, ambient manifolds are assumed to be compact toric manifolds and Lie groups are compact connected. The main result is that locally smooth manifolds are the instanton moduli spaces of the noncommutative vector bundles over noncommutative 4-manifolds associated with highest weights of the compact Lie groups. Moreover their dimensions are described explicitly in terms of given principal bundles and highest weights. As a cor…
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 $\mathrm{SU}(2)$…
Casson-type invariants emerging from Donaldson theory over certain negative definite 4-manifolds were recently suggested by Andrei Teleman. These are defined by a count of a zero-dimensional moduli space of flat instantons. Motivated by the cobordism program of proving Witten's conjecture, we use a moduli space of PU(2) Seiberg-Witten monopoles to exhibit an oriented one-dimensional cobordism of the instanton moduli space to the empty space. The Casson-type invariant must therefore vanish.
Recently Andrei Teleman considered instanton moduli spaces over negative definite four-manifolds $X$ with $b_2(X) \geq 1$. If $b_2(X)$ is divisible by four and $b_1(X) =1$ a gauge-theoretic invariant can be defined; it is a count of flat connections modulo the gauge group. Our first result shows that if such a moduli space is non-empty and the manifold admits a connected sum decomposition $X \cong X_1 # X_2$ then both $b_2(X_1)$ and $b_2(X_2)$ are divisible by four; this rules out a previously natural appearing source of 4-manifolds with non-empty moduli space. We give in some detail a constru…
Explicit construction of the basic SU(2) anti-instantons over the multi-Taub--NUT geometry via the classical conformal rescaling method is exhibited. These anti-instantons satisfiy the so-called weak holonomy condition at infinity with respect to the trivial flat connection and decay rapidly. The resulting unital energy anti-instantons have trivial holonomy at infinity. We also fully describe their unframed moduli space and find that it is a five dimensional space admitting a singular disk-fibration over R^3. On the way, we work out in detail the twistor space of the multi-Taub--NUT geometry t…
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{…
In alignment with a programme by Donaldson and Thomas [DT], Thomas [Th] constructed a deformation invariant for smooth projective Calabi-Yau threefolds, which is now called the Donaldson-Thomas invariant, from the moduli space of (semi-)stable sheaves by using algebraic geometry techniques. In the same paper [Th], Thomas noted that certain perturbed Hermitian-Einstein equations might possibly produce an analytic theory of the invariant. This article sets up the equations on symplectic 6-manifolds, and gives the local model and structures of the moduli space coming from the equations. We then d…
We use the information metric to investigate the moduli space of a U(1) instanton on (anti)self-dual manifolds, finding an $AdS$ geometry similar to that for the moduli space of a Yang-Mills instanton on flat space. We discuss our results from the perspective of gauge/gravity duality.
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…
Yang-Mills instantons on ALE gravitational instantons were constructed by Kronheimer and Nakajima in terms of matrices satisfying algebraic equations. These were conveniently organized into a quiver. We construct generic Yang-Mills instantons on ALF gravitational instantons. Our data are formulated in terms of matrix-valued functions of a single variable, that are in turn organized into a bow. We introduce the general notion of a bow, its representation, its associated data and moduli space of solutions. For a judiciously chosen bow the Nahm transform maps any bow solution to an instanton on a…
We study a moduli space of ASD connections over $S^3\times \mathbb{R}$. We consider not only finite energy ASD connections but also infinite energy ones. So the moduli space is infinite dimensional in general. We study the (local) mean dimension of this infinite dimensional moduli space. We show the upper bound on the mean dimension by using a "Runge-approximation" for ASD connections, and we prove its lower bound by constructing an infinite dimensional deformation theory of periodic ASD connections.
We develop the deformation theory of instantons on asymptotically conical $G_2$-manifolds, where an asymptotic connection at infinity is fixed. A spinorial approach is adopted to relate the space of deformations to the kernel of a twisted Dirac operator on the $G_2$-manifold and to the eigenvalues of a twisted Dirac operator on the nearly Kähler link. This framework is then used to calculate the virtual dimension of the moduli spaces of $G_2$-instantons on which several known examples live. One such example considered is the $G_2$-instanton of Günaydin-Nicolai, which lives on $R^7$. As an appl…
We describe explicitly the moduli spaces $M^{pst}_g(S,E)$ of polystable holomorphic structures $E$ with $\det E\cong K$ on a rank 2 vector bundle $E$ with $c_1(E)=c_1(K)$ and $c_2(E)=0$ for all minimal class VII surfaces $S$ with $b_2(S)=1$ and with respect to all possible Gauduchon metrics $g$. These surfaces $S$ are non-elliptic and non-Kaehler complex surfaces and have recently been completely classified. When $S$ is a half or parabolic Inoue surface, $M^{pst}_g(S,E)$ is always a compact one-dimensional complex disc. When $S$ is an Enoki surface, one obtains a complex disc with finitely man…
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…
