Vafa–Witten S-duality conjecture for SU(r) and PSU(r) partition functions

Let (X,H)(X,H) be a smooth polarized surface with H1(X,Z)=0H_1(X,\mathbb{Z})=0 and h2,0(X)>0h^{2,0}(X)>0. Let rr be prime and let c1H2(X,Z)c_1\in H^2(X,\mathbb{Z}) be algebraic. Let q=exp(2π1,τ)q=\exp(2\pi\sqrt{-1}\\,\tau), where τ\tau lies in the upper half plane, and regard the two partition functions as Fourier expansions of meromorphic functions of τ\tau. Vafa–Witten S-duality conjecture. The functions satisfy

VWX,c1SU(r)(1/τ)=(1)(r1)χ(OX)(rτ1)e(X)/2VWX,c1PSU(r)(τ).\mathsf{VW}^{\mathrm{SU}(r)}_{X,c_1}(-1/\tau)=(-1)^{(r-1)\chi(\mathcal{O}_X)}\left(\frac{r\tau}{\sqrt{-1}}\right)^{-e(X)/2}\mathsf{VW}^{\mathrm{PSU}(r)}_{X,c_1}(\tau).

The conjecture was checked in the source for r=2,3,5r=2,3,5 using the corresponding conjectural closed expressions for the universal functions; it remains open in general.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

D. van Bree, A. Gholampour, Y. Jiang and M. Kool, “A virtual PGL_r-SL_r correspondence for projective surfaces”, arXiv:2308.02288 (2025).

Additional references

3 papers in this index state this conjecture (2019–2023). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2003.09562, arXiv:1909.04241.

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