Virtual push-forwards (Q691545)

Behrend and Fantechi constructed a virtual fundamental class for the Deligne-Mumford stacks which are equipped with perfect obstruction theories. The virtual fundamental class is a key element in defining the Gromov-Witten and Donaldson-Thomas invariants when the moduli spaces are highly singular. The paper under review investigates the behavior of the virtual fundamental class under the proper push forwards. One of the main result of the paper proves that if \(p:F\to G\) is a proper morphism of connected DM stacks which has a perfect relative obstructions theory compatible with some perfect obstruction theories on \(F\) and \(G\) then the push forward of the virtual class of \(F\) is a scaler multiple of the virtual class of \(G\). A relative version of this result also proven in the paper under review generalizes Costello's virtual push forward property. A step in the proof of this result is the generalization of the virtual pull backs of the author's paper [\textit{C. Manolache}, J. Algebr. Geom. 21, No. 2, 201--245 (2012; Zbl 1328.14019)] to the groups of algebraic equivalence classes. Another important ingredient of the proof is a generalization of the classical conservation of number principal to the case of the virtually smooth morphisms. A consequence of the latter result is that the virtual Euler characteristic is locally constant in virtually smooth families. As an application of the main result, the author gives a new proof to a theorem of Marian, Oprea, Pandharipande that compares the virtual classes of the moduli spaces of stable maps to projective spaces and the moduli spaces of stable quotients.