Vertical Vafa-Witten invariants (Q2037139)

Vafa-Witten invariants introduced by Tanaka-Thomas are enumerative invariants of Higgs pairs on surfaces. In the stable case, the \(SU(r)\) invariants are defined as \[ VW_{r, L, c_2}= \int_{ [ (\mathcal{N}^\perp_{r,L,c_2})^{\mathbb{C}^*}]^\text{vir} } \frac{1}{e(N^\text{vir})}. \] Here \(\mathcal{N}^\perp_{r,L,c_2}\) denotes the moduli space of Gieseker semistable Higgs pairs \((E,\phi)\) on a smooth polarized projective surface \(S\) with \(\mathrm{rk}(E)=r, \det E=L, c_2(E)=c_2\) and \(\mathrm{tr}(\phi)=0\). It has a symmetric obstruction theory equivariant with respect to the \(\mathbb{C}^*\) action scaling \(\phi\), and the RHS is defined by virtual localization. The same recipe can be used to define pair invariants \[ P^\perp_{r, L, c_2}(n)= \int_{ [ (\mathcal{P}^\perp_{r,L,c_2})^{\mathbb{C}^*}]^\text{vir} } \frac{1}{e(N^\text{vir})}. \] For a polarization \(H\) of \(S\) and \(n \gg 0\), \(\mathcal{P}^\perp_{r,L,c_2}\) denotes the moduli space of isomorphism classes of Joyce-Song type pairs \(( (E, \phi), s)\) that are stable, where \((E,\phi)\) is a semistable Higgs pair, \(s \colon \mathcal{O}_S(-nH) \to E\) a nonzero section, and the pair is stable if \(s\) does not factor through any destabilizing sub Higgs pair. A Higgs pair \((E,\phi)\) corresponds to a torsion sheaf \(\mathcal{E}\) on the total space \(X=\mathbb{V}_S(K_S)\) via the spectral construction, and \(( (E, \phi), s)\) corresponds to a Joyce-Song pair \((\mathcal{E}, s)\) on \(X\). In the presence of strictly semistable Higgs pairs and when \(\deg K_S>0\), Vafa-Witten invariants remain conjectural in general, and their existence is formulated using the invariants \(P^\perp_{r, L, c_2}(n)\). For a more detailed summary, see the introduction of the paper by \textit{Y. Tanaka} and \textit{R. P. Thomas} [Pure Appl. Math. Q. 13, No. 3, 517--562 (2018; Zbl 1404.53036)]. \(K\)-theoretic refinement of numerical Vafa-Witten invariants are discussed by \textit{R. P. Thomas} [Commun. Math. Phys. 378, No. 2, 1451--1500 (2020; Zbl 1464.14060)]. For a surface \(S\) with \(p_g(S)>0\), Vafa-Witten invariants \(VW_{\alpha}\) for \(\alpha=(r,L,c_2)\) are conjecturally defined by \[ P^\perp_\alpha(n) = (-1)^{\chi(\alpha(n))-1}\chi(\alpha(n))VW_{\alpha}. \] The \(K\)-theoretic version is \[ P^\perp_\alpha(n,t) = (-1)^{\chi(\alpha(n))-1}[\chi(\alpha(n))]_tVW_{\alpha}(t). \] The paper under review concerns the contribution of vertical components in \((\mathcal{P}^\perp_{\alpha})^{\mathbb{C}^*}\) to \(P^\perp_\alpha(n)\) and \(P^\perp_\alpha(n,t)\). Results and techniques of this paper can be viewed as extension of the author's previous work [Geom. Topol. 24, No. 6, 2781--2828 (2020, Zbl 1506.14111)]. As the author showed, vertical components can be explicitly constructed from nested Hilbert schemes. It is proved that the contribution is of the form \((-1)^{\chi(\alpha(n))-1}\chi(\alpha(n))VW^{\text{vert}}_{\alpha}\) for certain number \(VW^{\text{vert}}_{\alpha}\) independent of \(n\), parallel result holds for \(K\)-theoretic invariants \(VW^{\text{vert}}_{\alpha}(t)\). It follows from a vanishing result of Thomas that when the rank of \(E\) is prime, \(VW_\alpha^{\text{vert}}\) (\(VW^{\text{vert}}_{\alpha}(t)\)) accounts for all contribution from the monopole branch to \(VW_\alpha\) (\(VW_\alpha(t)\)). The author further established that the generating functions for \(VW^{\text{vert}}_{\alpha}\) and \(VW^{\text{vert}}_{\alpha}(t)\) can be expressed in terms of universal Laurent series \(A, B, C_{ij}\) that appeared in the author's paper [loc.cit., Theorem A] and Seiberg-Witten invariants.