Cohomological Hall algebras of one-dimensional sheaves on surfaces and Yangians: a comprehensive account

TL;DR

This paper develops a geometric framework for cohomological Hall algebras of sheaves on surfaces, identifies them with affine Yangians in special cases, and conjectures a PBW-type relation among them.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic construction of cohomological Hall algebras for sheaves on surfaces, relates them to affine Yangians, and proposes a conjecture on their PBW structure.

Findings

Explicit identification of COHAs with affine Yangians for Kleinian resolutions.

Partial proof of PBW-type conjecture in specific cases.

Development of a continuity theorem for COHAs under t-structure limits.

Abstract

We begin the systematic study of cohomological Hecke operators of modifications of coherent sheaves on a smooth surface $X$, along a fixed proper curve $Z \subset X$. We develop the necessary geometric foundations in order to define the $T$-equivariant cohomological Hall algebra $\mathbf{HA}^{\mathbf{D}, T}_{X,Z}$ of the moduli stack of coherent sheaves on $X$ with set-theoretic support on $Z$, in the setting of a general motivic formalism $\mathbf{D}$. The algebra $\mathbf{HA}^{\mathbf{D}, A}_{X,Z}$ is functorial with respect to closed immersions $Z' \subset Z$ and transformations of the motivic formalism $\mathbf{D}$, and only depends on the formal neighborhood $\widehat{X}_Z$ of $Z$ in $X$. Assume $\mathbf{D}$ gives rise to Borel-Moore homology. When $X$ is a resolution of a Kleinian singularity and $Z$ is the exceptional divisor, we explicitly identify $\mathbf{HA}^T_{X,Z}$ with a completed nonstandard positive half $\mathbb{Y}^+_\infty(\mathfrak{g})$ of the affine Yangian $\mathbb{Y}(\mathfrak{g})$ of the corresponding affine ADE type Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$. Let $Z_1,Z_2 \subset X$ be curves with $Z_1\cap Z_2$ being zero-dimensional. We conjecture a PBW type theorem relating the COHAs of the pairs $(X, Z_1\cup Z_2), (X, Z_1)$, and $(X, Z_2)$ and partially prove it in several interesting cases, including all Kleinian resolutions of singularities and elliptic surfaces of types $D$ and $E$. Our main tools are: (i) a continuity theorem describing the behavior of COHAs of objects in the heart of $t$-structures $\tau_n$ when the sequence $(\tau_n)_n$ converges in an appropriate sense to a fixed $t$-structure $\tau_\infty$; (ii) a theorem relating the action of the braid group $B_Q$ by derived autoequivalences on the preprojective algebra of a quiver $Q$ with the algebraic action of $B_Q$ on the associated COHA $\mathbf{HA}^T_Q$.