Donaldson = Seiberg-Witten from Mochizuki's formula and instanton counting (Q533375)

Witten's conjecture describes the relationship between the Donaldson invariants and the Seiberg-Witten invariants for 4-manifolds of simple type. Using the \(SO(3)\) monopole program of Pidstrigach and Tyurin, this conjecture has been partially verified by Feehan and Leness under certain technical assumptions on the moduli space, but as yet a complete proof of Witten's conjecture has not been found. The paper under review represents a new and intriguing approach to resolving Witten's conjecture. The authors propose an explicit formula connecting the Donaldson invariants and the Seiberg-Witten invariants for 4-manifolds of simple type using Nekrasov's deformed partition function for the \(N=2\) SUSY gauge theory with a single fundamental matter. Their formula is based on one that Mochizuki obtained for the Donaldson invariants of a complex projective surface, and the authors relate the coefficients appearing in Mochizuki's formula to the leading terms of Nekrasov's deformed partition function. In essence, they show that the coefficients are the equivariant \(SO(3)\) monopole invariants for \({\mathbb R}^4.\) Assuming their formula is true for smooth 4-manifolds of simple type, they show how to deduce Witten's conjecture, as well as the sum rules for the Seiberg-Witten invariants, as conjectured by Mariño, Moore, and Peradze.