Tautological stable pair invariants of Calabi-Yau 4-folds (Q2071646)

This paper can be viewed as an extension of previous work of the authors (notably [\textit{Y. Cao} et al., J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 24, No. 2, 527--581 (2022; Zbl 1491.14077)]) studying sheaf-counting invariants of Calabi-Yau \(4\)-folds \(X\), in particular the CY4 analogue of the Pandharipande-Thomas/Gopakumar-Vafa correspondence. PT invariants count pairs \((E,s)\) of coherent sheaves \(E \in \mathsf{Coh}(X)\) and a section \(s\), with some notion of stability, while GV invariants \(n_{g,\beta}(X)\) are integer-valued invariants underlying the Gromov-Witten theory of \(X\) (which vanishes in genus \(g>1\) for dimensional reasons) defined formally from its multiple-cover formulas. Under some assumptions on \(X\), a divisor \(i\colon D \hookrightarrow X\) and permissible curve classes \(\beta\), the main conjecture of this paper is a formula \begin{align*} \sum_{n,\beta} P^t_{n,\beta}(\mathcal{O}_X(D)) q^n y^\beta = &\prod_{\beta \in H_2(D, \mathbb{Z})} \prod_{1 \le k \le [t(\mathcal{O}_X(1) \cdot \beta)]} (1 - (-q)^k y^{i_*\beta})^{k \cdot n_{0,\beta}(D)} \\ &\prod_{\beta \in H_2(X, \mathbb{Z})} \prod_{k \ge 1} (1 - y^\beta)^{-k \cdot n_{1,\beta}(X)}, \end{align*} relating GV invariants to \emph{tautological} pair invariants of the form \[ P^t_{n,\beta}(L) = \int_{[P^t_n(X, \beta)]^{\mathrm{vir}}} e(L^{[n]}), \quad L \in \operatorname{Pic}(X); \] previous conjectures involved only \emph{primary} PT invariants, where \(L\) is not present. The family \(P^t_n(X, \beta)\) of moduli spaces, parameterized by \(t\), interpolates between the Joyce-Song and PT stability chambers for pairs, hence the conjectural formula also describes this wall-crossing in \(t\). Many pieces of evidence are given to support the conjecture, which generalizes many earlier conjectures in the literature. A general proof is given assuming all relevant families of curves in \(X\) deform with expected properties, but explicit calculations are also given for various fibrations \(X \to Y\). These calculations focus on the JS and PT stability chambers, where forgetful maps from \(P^t_n(X, \beta)\) to the underlying moduli of sheaves are often isomorphisms or projective bundles. When \(X = \mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}(-1,-1) \times C\) for a projective curve \(C\), all tautological pair invariants in the JS chamber are computed equivariantly, yielding as an application an earlier conjectural formula for JS invariants of the local resolved conifold \(\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}(-1,-1,0)\).