The Gromov invariants of Ruan-Tian and Taubes (Q1372890)

Recently two types of Gromov invariants for symplectic four-dimensional manifolds were defined by C. H. Taubes and by Y. Ruan and G. Tian. The authors prove that Taubes's invariants are equal to certain combinations of Ruan-Tian invariants. This result allows them to propose a generalization of Taubes's invariants. Thus for each closed symplectic four-manifold a sequence of symplectic invariants \(\text{Gr}_\delta\), \(\delta= 0,1,2, \dots\) is defined such that \(\text{Gr}_0\) generates Taubes's invariants, which count embedded \(J\)-holomorphic curves, and the new invariants \(\text{Gr}_\delta\) count immersed curves with \(\delta\) double points. The same result gives an independent proof that Taubes's invariants are well-defined. As a consequence it is obtained that for symplectic 4-manifolds with \(b^\pm>1\), some of the Ruan-Tian symplectic invariants agree with the Seiberg-Witten invariants.