Node polynomials for curves on surfaces (Q2162661)

The paper under review concerns the problem of enumerating nodal curves on smooth complex surfaces: it is the fourth on the topic by the Authors. Here they complete the proof of a theorem about a family of curves on a family of surfaces, announced and partly proved in [\textit{S. L. Kleiman} and \textit{R. Piene}, Math. Nachr. 271, 69--90 (2004; Zbl 1066.14063)]. The set up is a smooth projective family of surfaces \(\pi: F\rightarrow Y\) and a relative effective divisor \(D\) on \(F/Y\), where \(Y\) is an equidimensional Cohen-Macaulay scheme over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\): the first part of the theorem, which was proved in the aforementioned paper, describes a natural cycle \(U(D, r)\) on \(Y\) that enumerates the fibers \(D_y\) with precisely \(r\) ordinary nodes, for each \(r\geq 1\). The second part of the theorem, which is proved in the present paper, asserts that, for \(r\leq 8\), the rational equivalence class \(u(D, r)\) of \(U (D, r)\) is given by a computable universal polynomial in the pushdowns to the parameter space of products of the (relative) Chern classes of the family: \(u(D,r)= \frac{1}{r!}P_r(a_1(D),\dots,a_r(D))\cap[Y]\), where \(P_r\) is the \(r\)th Bell polynomial. In the proof, a central role is played by the induced pairs \((F_i/X_i,D_i)\) of a given pair \((F/Y,D)\), (see [\textit{S. Kleiman} and \textit{R. Piene}, Contemp. Math. 241, 209--238 (1999; Zbl 0953.14031)] for construction and elementary properties): the key to prove the theorem is in fact a recursive relation for the class \(u(D, r)\) in terms of the classes \(u(D_i, r_i)\) of the induced pairs \((F_i/X_i,D_i)\).