Seiberg-Witten invariants and rationality of complex surfaces (Q1358244)

The paper begins with an easy introduction to \(\text{Spin}^c\)-structures on 4-manifolds and the associated Seiberg-Witten monopole equations. Then it explains the structure of the corresponding Seiberg-Witten invariants with special emphasis on the particular case of manifolds with \(b_+ =1\). Next it is shown that monopoles on Kähler surfaces have a purely holomorphic interpretation as effective divisors. The present proof is a simplified version of the Kobayashi-Hitchin type correspondence which was obtained in [the authors, Int. J. Math. 6, No. 6, 893-910 (1995; Zbl 0846.57013)]. As an application, a simple and selfcontained proof is given for the fact that rationality of complex surfaces is a \({\mathcal C}^\infty\)-property.