Stable pairs with descendents on local surfaces. I: The vertical component (Q1756163)

Let \(S\) be a complex surface which is smooth and projective, \(X\) be the total space of the canonical bundle on \(S\). This paper studies the stable pair invariants and descendants on \(X\) using both the localization by \(T=\mathbb{C}^*\) acting on the fiber of \(X \to S\) and the cosection localization. Denote by \(\iota:S \to X\) be the zero section. For given \(\beta \in H_2(S,\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\chi \in \mathbb{Z}\), denote by \(P:=P_\chi(X,\iota_* \beta)\) the moduli space of stable pairs \((F,s)\) on \(X\) with \([F] = \iota_* \beta\) and \(\chi(F)=\chi\). The stable pair invariants and descendants are defined using the \(T\)-action on \(P\), In order to obtain non-zero invariants one can only consider the case where \(\beta\) is a multiple of the canonical divisor \(C\) (Theorem 1.1). Thus the computation is reduced to the case where stable pairs are supported on thickenings of \(C\) parametrized by partitions (Theorem 1.3). The result is that only strict partitions contribute, and the generating function of descendants has an explicit combinatorial formula (Theorem 1.4). Using this result the authors verify various statements on the descendant-MNOP correspondence, Gromov-Witten theory of \(S\) and spin Hurwitz numbers (Remark 1.5).