Sutured manifolds and polynomial invariants from higher rank bundles (Q2177703)

This long and nicely written paper develops an extensive collection of features related to Donaldson invariants for $U(N)$-bundles, which have been little exploited in the past. These are invariants of the smooth structure of differentiable compact $4$-manifolds [\textit{S. K. Donaldson} and \textit{P. B. Kronheimer}, The geometry of four-manifolds. Oxford: Clarendon Press (1990; Zbl 0820.57002)], which have been very fruitful in distinguishing smooth $4$-manifolds, and obtaining topological properties of them, but the theory has been mainly developed for $U(2)$-bundles. Let $X$ be a smooth compact $4$-manifold. Take an integer $N\geq 2$ and consider Hermitian vector bundles over $X$ of rank $N$. Then the moduli spaces of anti-self-dual connections ${\mathcal M}$ can be used to define $U(N)$-Donaldson invariants. For constructing it, one perturbs with holonomy perturbations [\textit{P. B. Kronheimer}, J. Differ. Geom. 70, No. 1, 59--112 (2005; Zbl 1098.57018)] to make this moduli space regular (that is, smooth of the expected dimension) and then one compactifies it by introducing bubbling of ASD connections. Then by means of the universal bundle ${\mathbb P}\to {\mathcal M}\times X$, one transfers homology classes $z$ from $X$ to ${\mathcal M}$. One feature of the rank $N>2$ case is that one can use Chern classes $c_i({\mathbb P})$, $i=2,\ldots, N$, so one uses collections of $N-1$ homology classes of $X$. These are used to cut-down the moduli space until we get a numerical invariant $D_X(z)$. The paper focuses on the case of $U(3)$-Donaldson invariants. First a blow-up formula for Donaldson invariants as in [\textit{R. Fintushel} and \textit{R. J. Stern}, Ann. Math. (2) 143, No. 3, 529--546 (1996; Zbl 0869.57019)] is developed, which serves to define the concept of simple type for $U(3)$-Donaldson invariants, and to have a general formula for the generating function of $D_X$. This gives rise to the concept of basic classes in this set-up [\textit{P. B. Kronheimer} and \textit{T. S. Mrowka}, J. Differ. Geom. 41, No. 3, 573--734 (1995; Zbl 0842.57022)]. The $U(N)$-instanton Floer homology is developed [\textit{S. K. Donaldson}, Floer homology groups in Yang-Mills theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2002; Zbl 0998.53057)]. This serves to compute invariants in a Topological Quantum Field Theory way. Suppose $X=X_1^o\cup Y X_2^o$ is a closed $4$-manifold written as the union of two $4$-manifolds with boundary $X_1^o,X_2^o$, whose common boundary is a $3$-manifold $Y=\partial X_1^o=\partial X_2^o$. Then associated to $Y$ there is a vector space called instanton Floer homology $I_*(Y)$, and there are relative invariants $D_{X_1^o},D_{X_2^o}\in I_*(Y)$ such that $D_X$ is recovered by pairing them. The idea is to stretch the neck $Y\times [-T,T]$ separating $X_1^o,X_2^o$. This makes the ASD connections to become almost flat along $Y$. So $I_*(Y)$ is constructed out of the flat connections of the vector bundle on $Y$, with a differential coming from (finite energy) ASD connections on the cylinder $Y\times {\mathbb R}$. This is a sort of Morse homology associated to the Chern-Simons functional. The Fukaya-Floer theory is also developed [\textit{P. J. Braam} and \textit{S. K. Donaldson}, Prog. Math. 133, 257--281 (1995; Zbl 0996.57517)]. The authors work out the case of a surface $\Sigma$ times a circle, $Y=\Sigma\times S^1$, following the lines of [\textit{V. Muñoz}, Topology 38, No. 3, 517--528 (1999; Zbl 0927.57032)]. This is applied to study the Donalson invariants of fiber connected sums of two $4$-manifolds along a surface $\Sigma$, which gives properties of the basic classes, and the behaviour of basic classes under fiber connected sum. It allows to compute the $U(3)$-Donaldson invariants of the elliptic surfaces $E(n)$. Finally, a splitting of a $4$-manifold $X=X_1^o\cup Y X_2^o$ along a Brieskorn sphere $Y=\Sigma(a_1,a_2,a_3)$ allows to compute invariants of $4$-manifolds in more situations, and also to recover the instanton Floer homology of some homology spheres. Several versions of Floer homology (like the sutured Floer homology in [\textit{P. Kronheimer} and \textit{T. Mrowka}, J. Differ. Geom. 84, No. 2, 301--364 (2010; Zbl 1208.57008)]) associated to $3$-manifolds $Y$ and knots $K$ are introduced. This invariant allows to check the existence of nonabelian representations of $\pi_1(Y-K)$ into $SU(3)$.