Shifted Witten classes and topological recursion

Abstract

The Witten $r$-spin class defines a non-semisimple cohomological field theory. Pandharipande, Pixton and Zvonkine studied two special shifts of the Witten class along two semisimple directions of the associated Dubrovin--Frobenius manifold using the Givental--Teleman reconstruction theorem. We show that the $R$-matrix and the translation of these two specific shifts can be constructed from the solutions of two differential equations that generalise the classical Airy differential equation. Using this, we prove that the descendant intersection theory of the shifted Witten classes satisfies topological recursion on two $1$-parameter families of spectral curves. By taking the limit as the parameter goes to zero for these families of spectral curves, we prove that the descendant intersection theory of the Witten $r$-spin class can be computed by topological recursion on the $r$-Airy spectral curve. We finally show that this proof suffices to deduce Witten's $r$-spin conjecture, already proved by Faber, Shadrin and Zvonkine, which claims that the generating series of $r$-spin intersection numbers is the tau function of the $r$-KdV hierarchy that satisfies the string equation.

v1: 33 pages; v2: 36 pages, incorporated referee comments, final version

References in corpus (14)

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• The structure of 2D semi-simple field theories
• Tautological relations and the r-spin Witten conjecture
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• A new cohomology class on the moduli space of curves
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Relations on ${\overline{\mathcal{M}}}_{g,n}$ and the negative $r$-spin Witten conjecture
• KP integrability through the $x-y$ swap relation
• Taking limits in topological recursion