Localized Chern characters for 2-periodic complexes (Q2065447)

Motivated by physical reasoning, Witten conjectured in 1992 that the generating function of enumerative invariants associated to stable \(r\)-spin curves is a solution to the Gelfand-Dickey hierarchy [\textit{E. Witten}, in: Topological methods in modern mathematics. Proceedings of a symposium in honor of John Milnor's sixtieth birthday, held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA, June 14-June 21, 1991. Houston, TX: Publish or Perish, Inc. 235--269 (1993; Zbl 0812.14017)]. This was a generalisation of his earlier conjecture relating enumerative invariants associated to stable curves to the KdV hierarchy that was since proven by \textit{M. Kontsevich} [Commun. Math. Phys. 147, No. 1, 1--23 (1992; Zbl 0756.35081)]. As in the case of the Witten-Kontsevich theorem, the enumerative invariants associated to stable \(r\)-spin curves are intersection numbers of cohomology classes in a suitable moduli stack that was defined by \textit{T. J. Jarvis} [Int. J. Math. 11, No. 5, 637--663 (2000; Zbl 1094.14504)]. The precise mathematical statement of the general conjecture relies on a \textit{Witten top Chern class} on this moduli stack. Various constructions of the Witten top Chern class have been proposed. For instance, \textit{A. Polishchuk} and \textit{A. Vaintrob} [Contemp. Math. 276, 229--249 (2001; Zbl 1051.14007)] provide a construction in terms of \textit{localised Chern characters}. Meanwhile, H.-L. Chang, J. Li, and W.-P. Li [\textit{H.-L. Chang} et al., Invent. Math. 200, No. 3, 1015--1063 (2015; Zbl 1318.14048)] accomplish the same via \textit{cosection localisation} and additionally prove that their construction agrees with that of Polishchuk and Vaintrob. It turns out that this equivalence of constructions is an instance of a more general relation between cosection localisation and localised Chern characters. This statement of this general relation and its proof is the main result of the current paper. Localised Chern characters are examples of \textit{bivariant classes} associated to an inclusion \(i\) of a closed substack \(X\) into a Deligne-Mumford stack \(Y\). In general, given a morphism \(g: X\longrightarrow Y\) of DM stacks, a bivariant class in \(A^*(g)_{\mathbb Q}\) is a gadget that produces for any pullback \(X'\longrightarrow Y'\) of \(g\), a morphism \(A_*(Y')_{\mathbb Q}\longrightarrow A_*(X')_{\mathbb Q}\) of Chow groups with rational coefficients. This generalises the cap product with a fixed class in the Chow ring. Indeed, when \(X=Y\) and \(g\) is the identity, \(A^*(g)_{\mathbb Q}\) may be canonically identified with the Chow ring \(A^*(Y)_{\mathbb Q}\) with rational coefficients. In this sense, the notion of the \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded Chern character \(\text{ch}(E^\bullet)\in A^*(Y)_{\mathbb Q}\) of a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded complex of vector bundles \(E^\bullet\longrightarrow Y\) may be generalised to that of a \textit{localised} Chern character \(\text{ch}_X^Y(E^\bullet)\in A^*(i)_{\mathbb Q}\) of a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded complex of vector bundles \(E^\bullet\longrightarrow Y\) that is \textit{strictly exact off} \(X\subseteq Y\). This means that the restriction of the complex \(E^\bullet\) to the complement \(Y\smallsetminus X\) is exact and that the kernel of the differential is a subbundle. On the other end, cosection localisation, as defined by \textit{Y.-H. Kiem} and \textit{J. Li} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 26, No. 4, 1025--1050 (2013; Zbl 1276.14083)], involves a vector bundle \(p: F\longrightarrow M\) over a DM stack \(M\) along with a cosection i.e. a (global) section of the dual bundle \(F^\vee\). Evaluating the pullback of the cosection \(\sigma\) to \(p^*F^\vee\) on the tautological section \(t_F\) of \(p^*F\) gives a function \(w_\sigma\) on the total space of the bundle \(F\). Taking \(X\) to the zero-set \(Z(\sigma)\subseteq M\) of the cosection \(\sigma\) and \(Y\) to be the zero-set \(Z(w_\sigma)\subseteq F\) of the associated function \(w_\sigma\), we have a natural inclusion \(i: X\hookrightarrow Y\) given by the zero section. The associated \textit{localised Gysin map} \(0^!_{\sigma, F}\) is then a bivariant class in \(A^*(i)_{\mathbb Q}\). The authors of this paper show that up to a factor involving the Todd class of \(F|_{Z(\sigma)}\), this bivariant class is the localised Chern character of a \(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded complex of vector bundles over \(Y=Z(w_\sigma)\) that is strictly exact off \(X=Z(\sigma)\). The complex in question is a slight generalisation of the (\(\mathbb Z_2\)-graded) Koszul complex \(\bigwedge^\bullet F^\vee\) with differential given by \[ \alpha\longmapsto \sigma\wedge \alpha + \iota_{t_F}\alpha. \] This is a slight generalisation in that the usual Koszul complex is retrieved when we set \(\sigma\) to zero. Finally, as an application of the above result, the authors relate the virtual classes of two different moduli spaces associated to gauged linear sigma models. Roughly speaking, the cosection-localised virtual class of the moduli space of \(\varepsilon\)-stable quasimaps to a certain GIT quotient with \(p\)-fields equals, up to an explicitly determined sign, the virtual class of the moduli space of \(\varepsilon\)-stable quasimaps to the critical locus of a function associated to the cosection. This generalises a previous result due to \textit{H.-L. Chang} and \textit{J. Li} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2012, No. 18, 4163--4217 (2012; Zbl 1253.14053)].