Lectures on instanton counting

Abstract

These notes have two parts. The first is a study of Nekrasov's deformed partition functions $Z(\ve_1,\ve_2,\vec{a}:\q,\vec{\tau})$ of N=2 SUSY Yang-Mills theories, which are generating functions of the integration in the equivariant cohomology over the moduli spaces of instantons on $\mathbb R^4$. The second is review of geometry of the Seiberg-Witten curves and the geometric engineering of the gauge theory, which are physical backgrounds of Nekrasov's partition functions. The first part is continuation of math.AG/0306198, where we identified the Seiberg-Witten prepotential with $Z(0,0,\vec{a}:\q,0)$. We put higher Casimir operators to the partition function and clarify their relation to the Seiberg-Witten $u$-plane. We also determine the coefficients of $\ve_1\ve_2$ and $(\ve_1^2+\ve_2^2)/3$ (the genus 1 part) of the partition function, which coincide with two measure factors $A$, $B$ appeared in the $u$-plane integral. The proof is based on the blowup equation which we derived in the previous paper.