On the moduli space of Donaldson-Thomas instantons

Abstract

In alignment with a programme by Donaldson and Thomas [DT], Thomas [Th] constructed a deformation invariant for smooth projective Calabi-Yau threefolds, which is now called the Donaldson-Thomas invariant, from the moduli space of (semi-)stable sheaves by using algebraic geometry techniques. In the same paper [Th], Thomas noted that certain perturbed Hermitian-Einstein equations might possibly produce an analytic theory of the invariant. This article sets up the equations on symplectic 6-manifolds, and gives the local model and structures of the moduli space coming from the equations. We then describe a Hitchin-Kobayashi style correspondence for the equations on compact K\"ahler threefolds, which turns out to be a special case of results by Alvarez-Consul and Garcia-Prada [AG].