A quadratically enriched count of rational curves

Authors Jesse Leo Kass, Marc Levine, Jake P. Solomon, Kirsten Wickelgren

Publication date 4 July 2023

Motivic cohomology; motivic homotopy theory (14F42) Gromov-Witten invariants, quantum cohomology, Gopakumar-Vafa invariants, Donaldson-Thomas invariants (algebro-geometric aspects) (14N35) Hermitian (K)-theory, relations with (K)-theory of rings (19G38) Gromov-Witten invariants, quantum cohomology, Frobenius manifolds (53D45)

Abstract: We define a quadratically enriched count of rational curves in a given divisor class passing through a collection of points on a del Pezzo surface

S

of degree

g e q 3

over a perfect field

k

of characteristic

e q 2, 3.

When

S

is

m a t h b b A^{1}

-connected, the count takes values in the Grothendieck-Witt group GW(k) of quadratic forms over

k

and depends only on the divisor class and the fields of definition of the points. More generally, the count is a morphism from the sheaf of connected components of tuples of points on

S

with given fields of definition to the Grothendieck-Witt sheaf. We also treat del Pezzo surfaces of degree

2

under certain conditions. The curve count defined in the present work recovers Gromov-Witten invariants when

k = m a t h b b C

and Welschinger invariants when

k = m a t h b b R .

To obtain an invariant curve count, we define a quadratically enriched degree for an algebraic map

f

of

n

-dimensional smooth schemes over a field

k

under appropriate hypotheses. For example,

f

can be proper, generically finite and oriented over the complement of a subscheme of codimension

2.

This degree is compatible with F. Morel's GW(k)-valued degree of an

m a t h b b A^{1}

-homotopy class of maps between spheres. For

k s u b s e t e q m a t h b b C

, this produces an enrichment of the topological degree of a map between manifolds of the same dimension.

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