On the Riemannian geometry of Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces (Q950230)

The Seiberg-Witten equations represented a major breakthrough in \(4\)-dimensional topology. Cobordism invariants of the moduli space are subtle invariants of the smooth structure of the underlying \(4\)-manifold. There may be physical motivation for understanding the geometry (as opposed to topology) of these moduli spaces. In this paper, Becker defines a natural \(L^2\) metric on the Seiberg-Witten moduli space, the parameterized moduli space and the U\((1)\) bundle over the moduli space. This metric is just the restriction of the \(L^2\) product on the affine configuration space to the harmonic forms in the Hodge decomposition of the first term in the deformation complex. He presents formulae for the sectional curvatures of these metrics in terms of the Green's functions for the deformation complex. For the U\((1)\) bundle a modification is required. The U\((1)\) bundle is usually defined as the quotient of the space of monopoles by the based gauge group. As the associated Banach Lie algebra is not complemented, this will not yield a metric. For simply-connected \(4\)-manifolds, Becker constructs a topologically equivalent bundle as a quotient by suitably normalized gauge transformations called reduced gauge transformations. For Kähler manifolds, he shows that the resulting metric on the moduli space is also Kähler. He also identifies the exact metric on the moduli space of monopoles in the natural \(\text{Spin}^c\) structure on \(\mathbb{CP}^2\).