Donaldson-Thomas Invariants Research Articles

On the Euler numbers of certain moduli spaces of curves and points

We determine the topological Euler number of certain moduli space of 1-dimensional closed subschemes in a smooth projective variety which admits a Zariski-locally trivial fibration with 1-dimensional fibers. The main approach is to use virtual Hodge polynomials and torus actions. The results might shed some light on the corresponding Donaldson-Thomas invariants.

Topological string amplitudes, complete intersection Calabi-Yau spaces and threshold corrections

We present the most complete list of mirror pairs of Calabi-Yau complete intersections in toric ambient varieties and develop the methods to solve the topological string and to calculate higher genus amplitudes on these compact Calabi-Yau spaces. These symplectic invariants are used to remove redundancies in examples. The construction of the B-model propagators leads to compatibility conditions, which constrain multi-parameter mirror maps. For K3 fibered Calabi-Yau spaces without reducible fibers we find closed formulas for all genus contributions in the fiber direction from the geometry of the fibration. If the heterotic dual to this geometry is known, the higher genus invariants can be identified with the degeneracies of BPS states contributing to gravitational threshold corrections and all genus checks on string duality in the perturbative regime are accomplished. We find, however, that the BPS degeneracies do not uniquely fix the non-perturbative completion of the heterotic string. For these geometries we can write the topological partition function in terms of the Donaldson-Thomas invariants and we perform a non-trivial check of S-duality in topological strings. We further investigate transitions via collapsing D5 del Pezzo surfaces and the occurrence of free Z2 quotients that lead to a new class of heterotic duals.

Z-theory: chasing [formula omitted] theory

We present the evidence for the existence of the topological string analogue of M-theory, which we call Z-theory. The corners of Z-theory moduli space correspond to the Donaldson–Thomas theory, Kodaira–Spencer theory, Gromov–Witten theory, and Donaldson–Witten theory. We discuss the relations of Z-theory with Hitchin's gravities in six and seven dimensions, and make our own proposal, involving spinor generalization of Chern–Simons theory of three-forms. To cite this article: N. Nekrasov, C. R. Physique 6 (2005).

Hilbert schemes, Donaldson–Thomas theory, Vafa–Witten and Seiberg–Witten theory

Hilbert schemes, Donaldson–Thomas theory, Vafa–Witten and Seiberg–Witten theory

Geometric engineering of (framed) BPS states

BPS quivers for $\mathcal{N} = 2 \: SU(N)$ gauge theories are derived via geometric engineering from derived categories of toric Calabi-Yau threefolds. While the outcome is in agreement of previous low energy constructions, the geometric approach leads to several new results. An absence of walls conjecture is formulated for all values of $N$, relating the field theory BPS spectrum to large radius D-brane bound states. Supporting evidence is presented as explicit computations of BPS degeneracies in some examples. These computations also prove the existence of BPS states of arbitrarily high spin and infinitely many marginal stability walls at weak coupling. Moreover, framed quiver models for framed BPS states are naturally derived from this formalism, as well as a mathematical formulation of framed and unframed BPS degeneracies in terms of motivic and cohomological Donaldson-Thomas invariants. We verify the conjectured absence of BPS states with exotic $SU(2)_R$ quantum numbers using motivic DT invariants. This application is based in particular on a complete recursive algorithm which determines the unframed BPS spectrum at any point on the Coulomb branch in terms of noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants for framed quiver representations.

Generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants

This is a survey of the book arXiv:0810.5645 with Yinan Song. Let X be a Calabi-Yau 3-fold over C. The Donaldson-Thomas of X are integers DT^a(t) which count stable sheaves with Chern character a on X, with respect to a Gieseker stability condition t. They are defined only for Chern characters a for which there are no strictly semistable sheaves on X. They have the good property that they are unchanged under deformations of X. Their behaviour under change of stability condition t was not understood until now. We discuss generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants \bar{DT}^a(t). These are rational numbers, defined for all Chern characters a, and are equal to DT^a(t) if there are no strictly semistable sheaves in class a. They are deformation-invariant, and have a known transformation law under change of stability condition. We conjecture they can be written in terms of integral BPS invariants \hat{DT}^a(t) when the stability condition t is generic. We extend the theory to abelian categories of representations of a quiver with relations coming from a superpotential, and connect our ideas with Szendroi's noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants and work by Reineke and others. There is significant overlap between arXiv:0810.5645 and the independent paper arXiv:0811.2435 by Kontsevich and Soibelman.

Purity of critical cohomology and Kac’s conjecture

We provide a new proof of the Kac positivity conjecture for an arbitrary quiver $Q$. The ingredients are the cohomological integrality theorem in Donaldson-Thomas theory, dimensional reduction, and an easy purity result. These facts imply the purity of the cohomological Donaldson-Thomas invariants for a quiver with potential $(\tilde{Q},W)$ associated to $Q$, which in turn implies positivity of the Kac polynomials for $Q$.

HOMFLY polynomials, stable pairs and motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants

Hilbert scheme topological invariants of plane curve singularities are identified to framed threefold stable pair invariants. As a result, the conjecture of Oblomkov and Shende on HOMFLY polynomials of links of plane curve singularities is given a Calabi-Yau threefold interpretation. The motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory developed by M. Kontsevich and the third author then yields natural motivic invariants for algebraic knots. This construction is motivated by previous work of V. Shende, C. Vafa and the first author on the large $N$-duality derivation of the above conjecture.

Cohomological Hall algebra, exponential Hodge structures and motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants

We define a new type of Hall algebras associated e.g. with quivers with polynomial potentials. The main difference with the conventional definition is that we use cohomology of the stack of representations instead of constructible sheaves or functions. In order to take into account the potential we introduce a generalization of theory of mixed Hodge structures, related to exponential integrals. Generating series of our Cohomological Hall algebra is a generalization of the motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants introduced in arXiv:0811.2435. Also we prove a new integrality property of motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants.

Wallcrossing and cohomology of the moduli space of Hitchin pairs

A conjectural recursive relation for the Poincar\'e polynomial of the Hitchin moduli space is derived from wallcrossing in the refined local Donaldson-Thomas theory of a curve. A doubly refined generalization of this theory is also conjectured and shown to similarly determine the Hodge polynomial of the same moduli space.

Counting conics on sextic $4$-folds

We study rational curves of degree two on a smooth sextic 4-fold and their counting invariant defined using Donaldson-Thomas theory of Calabi-Yau 4-folds. By comparing it with the corresponding Gromov-Witten invariant, we verify a conjectural relation between them proposed by the author, Maulik and Toda.