Instanton counting and Donaldson invariants (Q998658)

The authors determine Donaldson invariants and wallcrossing formulas for smooth projective toric surfaces in terms of the Nekrasov partition function, and they prove a formula for the wallcrossing of good walls of simply connected projective surfaces with \(b_+=1\) in terms of modular forms. The resulting formula has been known to be a consequence of the Kotschick-Morgan conjecture, cf. the first author [J. Am. Math. Soc. 9, 827--843 (1996; Zbl 0872.57027)], and there has been physical reasoning in favor of it as well by \textit{G. Moore} and \textit{E. Witten} [Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 1, 298--387 (1997; Zbl 0899.57021)]. As indicated above, the proof here is based on \textit{N. A. Nekrasov}'s ideas [Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 7, 831--864 (2003; Zbl 1056.81068)]. In the course of the argument, equivariant Donaldson invariants are considered, and the equivariant wallcrossing formula is expressed as a residue of a product over contributions from fixed point sets. The local contribution is essentially the Nekrasov partition function, and the main formula results from a passage to the nonequivariant limit and the solution of the \textit{N. A. Nekrasov} conjecture by the second and third authors [Algebraic structures and moduli spaces. Proceedings of the CRM workshop, Montréal, Canada, July 14-20, 2003. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS). CRM Proceedings \& Lecture Notes 38, 31--101 (2004; Zbl 1080.14016)], \textit{N. A. Nekrosov} himself with \textit{A. Okounkov} [The unity of mathematics. In honor of the ninetieth birthday of I. M. Gelfand. Papers from the conference held in Cambridge, MA, USA, August 31--September 4, 2003. Boston, MA: Birkhäuser. Progress in Mathematics 244, 525--596 (2006; Zbl 1233.14029)], and [\textit{A. Braverman} and \textit{P. Etingof}, Studies in Lie theory. Dedicated to A. Joseph on his sixtieth birthday. Basel: Birkhäuser. Progress in Mathematics 243, 61--78 (2006; Zbl 1177.14036)]. The final \(\S 6\) is independent of the previous results and determines the equi\-variant Donaldson invariants of the projective plane in terms of the Nekrasov partition function.