On Casson-type instanton moduli spaces over negative definite four-manifolds

TL;DR

This paper investigates the structure of Casson-type instanton moduli spaces over negative definite four-manifolds, establishing divisibility conditions for their decomposition and constructing potential examples of manifolds with non-empty moduli spaces.

Contribution

It proves that non-empty moduli spaces impose divisibility conditions on the second Betti numbers of summand manifolds and provides a construction method for potential examples.

Findings

Both summand manifolds have second Betti numbers divisible by four.

Non-empty moduli spaces imply specific topological constraints.

A construction method for negative definite 4-manifolds with potential non-empty moduli spaces.

Abstract

Recently Andrei Teleman considered instanton moduli spaces over negative definite four-manifolds $X$ with $b_2(X) \geq 1$. If $b_2(X)$ is divisible by four and $b_1(X) =1$ a gauge-theoretic invariant can be defined; it is a count of flat connections modulo the gauge group. Our first result shows that if such a moduli space is non-empty and the manifold admits a connected sum decomposition $X \cong X_1 # X_2$ then both $b_2(X_1)$ and $b_2(X_2)$ are divisible by four; this rules out a previously natural appearing source of 4-manifolds with non-empty moduli space. We give in some detail a construction of negative definite 4-manifolds which we expect will eventually provide examples of manifolds with non-empty moduli space.