Tropical enumeration of curves in blowups of \(\mathbb{C}P^2\) (Q7023261)

The paper under review presents a new recursive method to compute Gromov-Witten (GW) invariants for blow-ups of the projective plane \(\mathbb{C}P^2\), generalizing previous results (e.g., [\textit{L. Göttsche} and \textit{R. Pandharipande}, J. Differ. Geom. 48, No. 1, 61--90 (1998; Zbl 0946.14033)] for genus 0, [\textit{L. Caporaso} and \textit{J. Harris}, Invent. Math. 131, No. 2, 345--392 (1998; Zbl 0934.14040)] for \(\mathbb{C}P^2\)) to arbitrary genus and arbitrary numbers of blow-ups. The author uses tropical geometry and exploded manifolds as a framework for describing holomorphic curves with normal crossing divisors and places importance on a simplified tropical gluing formula \( n_\gamma = \prod_v n_{\gamma_v} \) to decompose GW invariants into contributions from vertices of tropical curves. Finally, the author introduces relative GW potentials \(F\) and absolute GW potentials \(G\) which are connected via a reconstruction formula \( G = \Psi(F) + \sum q^{E_i} \), where \( \Psi \) encodes contributions from exceptional divisors.\N\NThe main results can be summarized as follows:\N\begin{itemize}\N\item Uniform recursion: The recursion applies to all blow-ups of \(\mathbb{C}P^2 \), independent of the number of blow-ups.\N\item Relative-to-absolute correspondence: Absolute GW invariants of blow-ups are reconstructed from relative invariants using tropical curve counts.\N\item Explicit computations: Mathematica code verifies invariants for low degrees (up to 12) and recovers known cases (e.g., Bryan-Leung formulas for 9-point blow-ups).\N\end{itemize}\NIt is remarkable that the highlights in this paper are the use of tropical curves in stratified spaces which balances curve counts with constraints via normal crossing divisors, the use of exploded manifolds which simplifies log GW theory and enables tropical decomposition via gluing formulas and recursive relations which is derived from constrained tropical curve counts and evaluation maps. However, there are still some limitations: \N\N(1) Closed-form expressions for invariants (e.g., Bryan-Leung formulas) remain elusive.\N\N(2) Computations rely on tropical gluing which may become combinatorially complicated for more blow-ups.\N\NIn conclusion, the paper under review makes significant progress in the computation of Gromov-Witten invariants for blow-ups of \( \mathbb{C}P^2 \), leveraging tropical geometry and exploded manifolds to unify recursive formulas across arbitrary genera and blow-up numbers. The approach used in this paper elegantly bridges relative and absolute invariants through a tropical gluing formula, offering a novel perspective compared to earlier work relying on symplectic sums or log GW theory. This work might inspire further developments in both theoretical and computational aspects of GW invariants.