Semistable refined Vafa-Witten invariants

Abstract

For any smooth complex projective surface $S$, we construct semistable refined Vafa-Witten invariants of $S$ which prove the main conjecture of arXiv:1810.00078. This is done by extending part of Joyce's universal wall-crossing formalism to equivariant K-theory, and to moduli stacks with symmetric obstruction theories, particularly moduli stacks of sheaves on Calabi-Yau threefolds. An important technical tool which we introduce is the symmetrized pullback, along smooth morphisms, of symmetric obstruction theories.

33 pages. v3: the nonzero H1 case of the main theorem has been weakened due to a mistake in previous versions, plus minor revisions based on referee comments. Journal version