On the invariance of Welschinger invariants

Abstract

We collect in this note some observations about original Welschinger invariants of real symplectic fourfolds. None of their proofs is difficult, nevertheless these remarks do not seem to have been made before. Our main result is that when $X$ is a real rational algebraic surface, Welschinger invariants only depend on the number of real interpolated points, and some homological data associated to $X$. This strengthened the invariance statement initially proved by Welschinger. This main result follows easily from a formula relating Welschinger invariants of two real symplectic manifolds differing by a surgery along a real Lagrangian sphere. In its turn, once one believes that such formula may hold, its proof is a mild adaptation of the proof of analogous formulas previously obtained by the author on the one hand, and by Itenberg, Kharlamov and Shustin on the other hand. We apply the two aforementioned results to complete the computation of Welschinger invariants of real rational algebraic surfaces, and to obtain vanishing, sign, and sharpness results for these invariants that generalize previously known statements. We also discuss some hypothetical relations of our work with tropical refined invariants defined by Block-G\ottsche and G\ottsche-Schroeter.