Halving spaces and lower bounds in real enumerative geometry (Q2133963)

Enumerative geometry problems often come in triplets: the real version, the complex version, and the quaternionic version. The real problem and the complex problem typically have the same number of solutions mod 2. One source of this phenomenon is the classical Borel-Haefliger theorem that states a degree halving isomorphism between the mod 2 cohomology of complex and real, say, Grassmannians. At such an isomorphism Chern classes (mod 2) are mapped to the corresponding Stiefel-Whitney classes. The paper under review elevates such arguments and results to establish degree-halving isomorphism in rational coefficient cohomology. The authors consider spaces \(X\), equipped with an action of a group \(\Gamma\), which is now \(U(1)\) or \(Sp(1)\) (the Borel-Haefliger situation is related to choosing \(\Gamma=Z_2\)). Under some assumptions on cycles, the main theorem is establishing a degree halving isomorphism between \(H^{2*}(X;Q)\) and \(H^*(X^\Gamma;Q)\). Various complex and quaternionic flag varieties are shown to be examples. Spectacular applications are shown in real and quaternionic Schubert calculus, in the form of lower bounds for solutions of Schubert problems. (Lower bounds are the right question in real Schubert calculus, since the actual number of solutions depends on the configurations, and the upper bounds come trivially from complexification.) The authors briefly explore generalizations to enumerative geometry of quivers and singularities (a.k.a. Thom polynomials). Throughout the paper beautiful and surprising enumeration examples are worked out, demonstrating the power of the theory.