English

A conjectural generating function for numbers of curves on surfaces

alg-geom 2016-08-30 v1 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

I give a conjectural generating function for the numbers of δ\delta-nodal curves in a linear system of dimension δ\delta on an algebraic surface. It reproduces the results of Vainsencher for the case δ6\delta\le 6 and Kleiman-Piene for the case δ8\delta\le 8. The numbers of curves are expressed in terms of five universal power series, three of which I give explicitly as quasimodular forms. This gives in particular the numbers of curves of arbitrary genus on a K3 surface and an abelian surface in terms of quasimodular forms, generalizing the formula of Yau-Zaslow for rational curves on K3 surfaces. The coefficients of the other two power series can be determined by comparing with the recursive formulas of Caporaso-Harris for the Severi degrees in 2\P_2. We verify the conjecture for genus 2 curves on an abelian surface. We also discuss a link of this problem with Hilbert schemes of points.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.alg-geom/9711012,
  title  = {A conjectural generating function for numbers of curves on surfaces},
  author = {Lothar Goettsche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:alg-geom/9711012},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

amslatex 13 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T07:42:55.152Z