The Betti numbers of the moduli space of stable sheaves of rank 3 on \({\mathbb{P}^2}\) (Q657638)

The paper computes the generating functions for Euler numbers and Betti numbers of moduli spaces of rank \(2\) and \(3\) stable sheaves on \(\tilde{\mathbb{P}}^2\) and \(\mathbb{P}^2\). They are expressed in terms of modular and indefinite theta functions, giving new computations and verifying known ones whenever they exist. The main tools for \(\tilde{\mathbb{P}}^2\) are the wall crossing formulas and flow trees, and the blow-up formulas are used to pass to \(\mathbb{P}^2\). For a sheaf \(F\) on a surface \(S\), let \(\mathrm{ch}(F) = r(F) + \mathrm{ch}_1(F) + \mathrm{ch}_2(F)\) be the Chern character. Let \(\Gamma = (r, \mathrm{ch}_1, \mathrm{ch}_2) \in \mathbb Z \times H^2(S) \times H^4(S)\). The stability of a sheaf \(F\) is defined with respect to a class \(J\) in the ample cone \(C(S)\). Given \(\Gamma\), the cone \(C(S)\) contains a collection of walls defined by linear functionals (depending on \(\Gamma\)). The collection is locally finite and is called \textit{walls of marginal stability}. The walls divide \(C(S)\) into chambers. A sheaf \(F\) stable with respect to \(J\) in one chamber can become unstable for \(J\) in its neighbour. Wall crossing formulas describe how the generating functions change for neighbouring chambers. In the special case of \(\tilde{\mathbb{P}^2}\), the cone \(C(S)\) is \(2\) dimensional, which leads to explicit description of the walls and chambers, as well as the wall crossing formulas. By choosing a good starting point, this paper uses these formulas to carry out computations of the generating functions. Let \(J \in C(S)\) and \(\mathcal M_J(\Gamma)\) be the moduli space of stable bundles \(F\) with \(\Gamma(F) = \Gamma\). The generating functions considered are of the form for Euler numbers (\S~3), and a slightly different form for Betti numbers is given in \S~4 \[ \bar\Omega(\Gamma; J) = \sum_{m|\Gamma} \frac{\Omega(\Gamma/m; J)}{m^2} \text{ where } \Omega(\Gamma; J) = (-1)^{\dim_{\mathbb C} \mathcal M_J(\Gamma)} \chi (\mathcal M_J(\Gamma)) \] \[ \text{ and } h_{r, c_1} (\tau; S, J) = \sum_{c_2} \bar\Omega(\Gamma; J) q^{r\triangle - \frac{r\chi(S)}{24}} \] where \(c_2\) and \(\triangle\) are respectively the \(2\)nd Chern class and the discriminant associated to \(\Gamma\), and \(q = \exp(2\pi i \tau)\). In \S~2, the wall crossing formulas are described for \(\Omega\) and the blow-up formula is described for \(h\). A \textit{flow tree} is a particular type of embedding of a rooted trivalent tree to \(C(S)\), where the leaves corresponds to primitive stable sheaves. In the case of rank \(2\) bundles on \(\tilde{\mathbb{P}}^2\), there is no stable bundles of rank \(2\) for \(J = k[f]\), multiples of the fiber class, and the primitive sheaves are rank \(1\) sheaves. The flow trees with root at \(J \in C(S)\) and leaves at \(k[f]\) corresponds to the terms in the sum \(h_{2, c_1}\) for fixed \(c_1\) (\S~3.2). The paper applies a simplification technique from \textit{J. Manschot} [Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 15, No. 1, 1--42 (2011; Zbl 1260.46039)] to count the flow trees for rank \(3\) case (\S~3.3). Similar methods are applied in \S~4 to obtain the generating functions for the Betti numbers.