A theory of generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants

Abstract

Let X be a Calabi-Yau 3-fold over C. The Donaldson-Thomas invariants 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. This book defines and studies a generalization of Donaldson-Thomas invariants. Our new invariants \bar{DT}^a(t) 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. To prove all this we study the local structure of the moduli stack M of coherent sheaves on X. We show that an atlas for M may be written locally as Crit(f) for f a holomorphic function on a complex manifold, and use this to deduce identities on the Behrend function of M. We compute our invariants in examples, and make a conjecture about their integrality properties. 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. This book is surveyed in the paper arXiv:0910.0105.