The Nekrasov conjecture for toric surfaces (Q982426)

In the paper under review, the authors study the Nekrasov conjecture which predicts a relation between the partition function for \(N=2\) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and the Seiberg-Witten prepotential. A generalized version of this conjecture for instantons on noncompact toric surfaces was formulated and proved. The main method is to use the localization formula via toric actions on the instanton moduli spaces. In Section 2, the instanton moduli spaces, i.e., the moduli spaces of framed bundles, on a non-singular projective rational surface \(X\) were described. It is proved that these moduli spaces are smooth with the expected dimensions. Assume in addition that \(X\) is toric. In Section 3, toric actions on the moduli spaces of framed bundles are defined. Their fixed points are determined. In Section 4, the authors introduced a general instanton partition function depending on two multiplicative classes \(A\) and \(B\) for \(X\). Different choices of \(A\) and \(B\) give partition functions of different gauge theories. Section 5 contains localization computations on instanton moduli spaces and the proof of the instanton part of the generalized Nekrasov conjecture. In Section 6, the authors defined the perturbative part of the partition function and computed the perturbative part of the conjecture. In the Appendix, Kobayashi-Hichin correspondence, equivariant cohomology and Seiberg-Witten prepotential are reviewed.