The flow tree formula for Donaldson-Thomas invariants of quivers with potentials
aa r X i v : . [ m a t h . R T ] F e b THE FLOW TREE FORMULA FOR DONALDSON-THOMASINVARIANTS OF QUIVERS WITH POTENTIALS
H ¨ULYA ARG ¨UZ AND PIERRICK BOUSSEAU
Abstract.
We prove the flow tree formula conjectured by Alexandrov and Pioline whichcomputes Donaldson-Thomas invariants of quivers with potentials in terms of a smallerset of attractor invariants. This result is obtained as a particular case of a more generalflow tree formula reconstructing a consistent scattering diagram from its initial walls.
Contents
1. Introduction 12. Trees and flows 93. Scattering diagrams 174. The flow tree formula for scattering diagrams 235. The flow tree formula for DT invariants 42References 471.
Introduction
Donaldson-Thomas (DT) theory is a topic at the intersection of algebraic geometry,symplectic geometry, representation theory and theoretical physics. Given a triangulatedcategory C which is Calabi-Yau of dimension 3 (CY3) together with a choice of Bridgelandstability condition θ [12], DT invariants are defined by virtually counting θ -semistableobjects in C [28, 40, 45, 64]. In quantum field theory and string theory, they play animportant role as counts of BPS states and D-branes [7].Quivers with potentials [27] provide a natural source of examples of CY3 categoriescoming from representation theory [32, 42]. Due to its more algebraic nature, DT theory ofquivers with potentials is an ideal setting to study and explore many questions which arealso of interest in the geometric incarnations of DT theory given by counts of semistableobjects in the derived category of coherent sheaves on Calabi-Yau 3-folds [64] and by countsof special Lagrangian submanifolds in Calabi-Yau 3-folds [39, 65].A key phenomenon in DT theory is wall-crossing in the space of stability conditions: DTinvariants are constant in the complement of countably many real codimension one loci in Date : February 23, 2021. the space of stability conditions called walls, but they jump discontinuously in general whenthe stability condition crosses a wall. The precise description of this jumping behaviour ofDT invariants across walls in the space of stability conditions is given by the wall-crossingformula of Joyce-Song and Kontsevich-Soibelman [40, 45], which is a universal algebraicexpression that contains some amount of combinatorial complexity.By successive applications of the wall-crossing formula, one can show that the DT in-variants of a quiver with potential are determined by a much smaller subset of attractorDT invariants defined by picking particular stability conditions [2, 46]. In [2], Alexandrov-Pioline conjectured, based on string-theoretic predictions, a new formula that expressesDT invariants in terms of the attractor DT invariants as a sum over trees, called the flowtree formula . Their conjecture reduces the general wall-crossing formula to an iterativeapplication of the much simpler primitive wall-crossing formula. The main result of thepresent paper is a proof of the flow tree formula. In fact, we prove a version of the flowtree formula in the more general context of consistent scattering diagrams.The flow tree formula is a new tool to unravel some of the deep and hidden structuresin DT theory. For example, versions of the flow tree formula are a major tool in the recentformulation of the conjectural proposal of [3] (see also [1]) for the construction of modularcompletions for generating series of DT invariants counting coherent sheaves supported onsurfaces inside Calabi-Yau 3-folds.1.1.
Background.
A quiver with potential ( Q, W ) is given by a finite oriented graph Q ,and a finite formal linear combination W of oriented cycles in Q . We denote by Q the setof vertices of Q . For every dimension vector γ ∈ N ∶= Z Q and stability parameter(1.1) θ ∈ γ ⊥ ⊂ M R ∶= Hom ( N, R ) , where γ ⊥ ∶= { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( γ ) = } , the theory of King’s stability for quiver representations [43]defines a quasiprojective variety M θγ , parametrizing S-equivalence classes of θ -semistablerepresentations of Q of dimension γ , and a regular function(1.2) Tr ( W ) θγ ∶ M θγ Ð → C . Assuming that θ is γ -generic in the sense that θ ( γ ′ ) = γ ′ collinear with γ , theDonaldson-Thomas (DT) invariant Ω θγ is an integer which is a virtual count of the criticalpoints of Tr ( W ) θγ . Applying Hodge theory to the sheaf of vanishing cycles of Tr ( W ) θγ , theinteger Ω θγ can be refined into a Laurent polynomial Ω θγ ( y, t ) in two variables y and t andwith integer coefficients, referred to as refined DT invariants [19, 20, 40, 45, 54, 60, 61]. It isoften convenient to use the rational functions Ω θγ ( y, t ) ∈ Q ( y, t ) defined as in [40, 45, 50] by(1.3) Ω θγ ( y, t ) ∶= ∑ γ ′ ∈ Nγ = kγ ′ , k ∈ Z ≥ k y − y − y k − y − k Ω θγ ′ ( y k , t k ) , HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 3 and referred to as rational DT invariants .The DT invariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) are locally constant functions of the γ -generic stability pa-rameter θ ∈ γ ⊥ and their jumps across the loci of non- γ -generic stability parameters aregiven by the wall-crossing formula of Joyce-Song and Kontsevich-Soibelman [40, 45]. Usingthe wall-crossing formula, the DT invariants can be computed in terms of the simpler at-tractor DT invariants , which are DT invariants at specific values of the stability parameter.Let ⟨ − , − ⟩ ∶ N × N → Z be the skew-symmetric form given by(1.4) ⟨ γ, γ ′ ⟩ = ∑ i,j ∈ Q ( a ij − a ji ) γ i γ ′ j , where a ij is the number of arrows in Q from the vertex i to the vertex j . The specific point ⟨ γ, − ⟩ ∈ γ ⊥ ⊂ M R is called the attractor point for γ [2, 57]. In general, the attractor point ⟨ γ, − ⟩ is not γ -generic and we define the attractor DT invariants Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) by(1.5) Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) ∶= Ω θ γ γ ( y, t ) , where θ γ is a small γ -generic perturbation of ⟨ γ, − ⟩ in γ ⊥ [2,57]. One can check that Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) is independent of the choice of the small perturbation [2, 57].For Q acyclic (and so W = ( Q, W ) admitting a green-to-red se-quence [55], the attractor DT invariants are as simple as possible:(1.6) Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) = ⎧⎪⎪⎨⎪⎪⎩ γ = ( δ ij ) i ∈ Q for some j ∈ Q , where δ ij is the Kronecker delta. Similarly, for a quiver with potential ( Q, W ) describing thederived category of coherent sheaves on a local del Pezzo surface, it is recently conjectured[8, 57] that Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) = γ = ( δ ij ) i ∈ Q for some j ∈ Q or unless γ is the class ofthe skyscraper sheaf of a point. However, for quivers with potential ( Q, W ) describinginteresting parts of the derived category of coherent sheaves on a compact Calabi-Yau 3-fold, the attractor DT invariants are expected to be non-vanishing and to typically exhibitan exponential growth. We refer to [9, 26, 47, 48, 51] for some explicit examples involving n -gon quivers.The rational DT invariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) for general γ -generic stability parameters θ ∈ γ ⊥ areexpressed in terms of the rational attractor DT invariants Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) by a formula of the form(1.7) Ω θγ ( y, t ) = ∑ r ≥ ∑ { γ i } ≤ i ≤ r ∑ ri = γ i = γ ∣ Aut ({ γ i } i )∣ F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) r ∏ i = Ω ∗ γ i ( y, t ) , where the second sum is over the multisets { γ i } ≤ i ≤ r with γ i ∈ N and ∑ ri = γ i = γ . Here, thedenominator ∣ Aut ({ γ i } i )∣ is the order of the symmetry group of { γ i } : if m γ ′ is the numberof times that γ ′ ∈ N appears in { γ i } i , then ∣ Aut ({ γ i } i )∣ = ∏ γ ′ ∈ N m γ ′ !. The coefficients H ¨ULYA ARG ¨UZ AND PIERRICK BOUSSEAU F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) are element of Q ( y ) and are universal in the sense that they depend on ( Q, W ) only through the skew-symmetric form ⟨ − , − ⟩ on N . Our main result is the proof ofan explicit formula, called the flow tree formula and conjectured by Alexandrov-Pioline [2],which computes the coefficients F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) in (1.7) combinatorially in terms of a sumover binary rooted trees, and where the contribution of each tree is computed followingthe flow on the tree starting at the root and ending at the leaves.1.2. Main result: the flow tree formula.
We introduce some notations which arenecessary to state precisely the flow tree formula in Theorem 1.1 below. We fix γ ∈ N , a γ -generic stability parameter θ ∈ γ ⊥ , and γ , . . . , γ r ∈ N such that ∑ ri = γ i = γ .An essential ingredient in the formulation of the flow tree formula for F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) is the choice of a generic skew-symmetric perturbation ( ω ij ) ≤ i,j ≤ r of the skew-symmetricmatrix (⟨ γ i , γ j ⟩) ≤ i,j ≤ r . The matrix ( ω ij ) ≤ i,j ≤ r cannot be viewed in general as a skew-symmetric bilinear form on the sublattice of N generated by γ , . . . , γ r because γ , . . . , γ r are not necessarily linearly independent in N . Nevertheless, the matrix ( ω ij ) ≤ i,j ≤ r canalways be interpreted as a skew-symmetric bilinear form ω on a rank r free abelian group N ∶= ⊕ ri = Z e i with a basis { e i } ≤ i ≤ r and such that ω ij = ω ( e i , e j ) . From this point of view,there is a natural additive map p ∶ N Ð→ N (1.8) e i z→ γ i , which enables us to define a skew-symmetric bilinear form η on N as being the pullbackof ⟨ − , − ⟩ on N , that is, η ( e i , e j ) ∶= ⟨ γ i , γ j ⟩ , and we consider a real-valued skew-symmetricform ω on N obtained as a small enough generic perturbation of η . Let M R ∶= Hom ( N , R ) and q ∶ M R → M R be the map induced from p ∶ N → N by duality. We denote by(1.9) α ∶= q ( θ ) the image in M R of the stability parameter θ ∈ M R by the map q .The flow tree formula in Theorem 1.1 below takes the form of a sum over trees. Moreprecisely, we consider rooted trees which apart from the root vertex have r univalentvertices, or leaves, decorated by the basis elements e , . . . , e r of N . For such a tree T , wedenote by V ○ T the set of interior, that is, non-univalent, vertices. We endow each such treewith the flow from the root to the leaves. Given a vertex v in a tree, the vertex adjacentto v coming before v along the flow is referred to as the parent of v and denoted by p ( v ) ,and the vertices adjacent to v and coming after v along the flow are referred to as the children of v , as illustrated in Figure 1.1. Any vertex that comes after v along the flow isa descendent of v . Let T r be the set of such trees which are binary , that is such that eachinterior vertex v of a tree T ∈ T r has exactly two children. For every tree T ∈ T r and v avertex of T , we define e v ∈ N as the sum of all elements that appear as decorations on the HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 5 v ′ v ′′ Children of v Parent of v The root vertex e e e e e e v ′′ = e + e e v ′ = e + e e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ = e + e + e + e p ( v ) R T v Figure 1.1.
A binary tree T with five leaves for N = Z e ⊕ Z e ⊕ Z e ⊕ Z e ⊕ Z e .leaves which are descendent of a vertex v . We denote by T ηr the set of trees T ∈ T r suchthat η ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) ≠ v is the child of the root and v ′ , v ′′ are the children of v .For every tree T ∈ T ηr and v a vertex of T distinct from the leaves, we define θ α,ωT,v ∈ M R recursively as follows: If v is the root vertex, then set θ α,ωT,v ∶ = α . If v is not the root, let p ( v ) be the parent of v , and for any of the children, say v ′ of v , and ι e v ω ∶ = ω ( e v , − ) ∈ M R ,define(1.10) θ α,ωT,v ∶ = θ α,ωT,p ( v ) − θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ι e v ω . We show in Lemma 2.12 that this definition is independent of the choice of the child v ′ of v . Following [2], we call v ↦ θ α,ωT,v the discrete attractor flow .For every tree T ∈ T ηr and interior vertex v ∈ V ○ T , we fix a labeling v ′ and v ′′ of the twochildren of v , and we define(1.11) ǫ α,ωT,v ∶ = − sgn ( θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ )) + sgn ( ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) ∈ { , , − } , where sgn ( x ) ∈ { ± } is the sign of x ∈ R − { } . We show in § ω ∈ ⋀ M R ,we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ≠ ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) ≠ ǫ α,ωT,v indeed makes sense.Our main result is the following flow tree formula , conjectured in [2], which enables us todetermine the coefficients F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) in (1.7) expressing the DT invariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) interms of the attractor DT invariants Ω ∗ γ i ( y, t ) . Theorem 1.1 .
For every choice a small enough generic perturbation ω ∈ ⋀ M R of theskew-symmetric bilinear form η , the universal coefficient F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) in (1.7) is givenby the flow tree formula: (1.12) F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) = ∑ T ∈T ηr ∏ v ∈ V ○ T ǫ α,ωT,v κ ( η ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) , where ǫ α,ωT,v is as in (1.11) and (1.13) κ ( x ) ∶ = ( − ) x ⋅ y x − y − x y − y − H ¨ULYA ARG ¨UZ AND PIERRICK BOUSSEAU for every x ∈ Z . Theorem 5.5 presents a version of Theorem 1.1 in which we phrase more explicitly thecondition that ω should be a small enough generic perturbation of η .We also prove a variant of the flow tree formula recently conjectured by Mozgovoy [56],which relies on a perturbation of points in M R rather than the skew-symmetric form.We first remark that θ ∈ γ ⊥ implies that α ∈ M R defined in (1.9) satisfies α ∈ (∑ ri = e i ) ⊥ .For β a small perturbation of α in the hyperplane (∑ ri = e i ) ⊥ , we define θ β,ηT,v ∈ M R and ǫ β,ηT,v ∈ { , , − } by replacing α by β and ω by η in (1.10) and (1.11). Theorem 1.2 .
For every choice β ∈ (∑ ri = e i ) ⊥ of small enough generic perturbation of α ∶ = q ( θ ) in the hyperplane (∑ ri = e i ) ⊥ , the universal coefficient F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) is given by: (1.14) F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) = ∑ T ∈T ηr ∏ v ∈ V ○ T ǫ β,ηT,v κ ( η ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) , where ǫ α,ωT,v is as in (1.11) and κ is as in (1.13) . In Theorem 5.6, we present a version of Theorem 1.2 in which we state more preciselythe condition that β should be a small enough generic perturbation of α .1.3. Structure of the proof.
The proof of Theorems 1.1 and 1.2 relies on the notionof a scattering diagram , introduced in [38], based on the insights of [44], to provide analgebro-geometric understanding of the mirror symmetry phenomenon in physics. To givethe rough idea of a scattering diagram, which we elaborate further in § N + -graded Lie algebra g = ⊕ n ∈ N + g n . There is an associated unipotent algebraic group G with a bijective exponential map exp ∶ g → G defined using the Baker–Campbell–Hausdorffformula. Given this data, a ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram is defined as the collection of realcodimension 1 cones in M R , called walls, which are decorated by wall-crossing automor-phisms, that are elements of G . We focus attention on scattering diagrams relevant toDT and cluster theory, which have wall-crossing automorphism preserving a holomorphicsymplectic form as in [13,17,18,34,36,37,46,49,55], and not on the more general scatteringdiagrams that have wall-crossing automorphisms preserving a holomorphic volume form,and which appear frequently in the context of mirror symmetry [6, 35, 38, 41].A codimension 2 locus in M R along which distinct walls intersect is called a joint . Ascattering diagram is said to be consistent if for any joint, the path-ordered product ofall wall-crossing automorphisms of walls that are adjacent to the joint is identity. It isshown in [38, 44] that there is an algorithmic prescription for constructing a consistentscattering diagram from the data of an initial set of walls. This prescription is based oninserting new walls, along with wall-crossing automorphisms, which order-by-order decreasethe divergence of the path-ordered products of wall-crossing automorphisms around jointsfrom being identity. HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 7
Given a quiver with potential ( Q, W ) , Bridgeland [13] constructed from the DT in-variants of ( Q, W ) a consistent scattering diagram in M R , called the stability scatteringdiagram , whose initial walls are determined by the attractor DT invariants. The stabilityscattering diagram is a very useful tool to study DT invariants of quivers. For example,the transformation properties of DT invariants under mutations of a quiver with potential,conjectured in [53] [57, Conjecture 3.14], are proved in [55, Theorem 4.22] by a study ofthe corresponding transformation of the stability scattering diagram.The main technical goal of the paper is to prove Theorems 4.22 and 4.24: they are flowtree formulas for consistent scattering diagrams which express as a sum over binary treesthe wall-crossing automorphism attached to a general wall in terms of the wall-crossingautomorphisms attached to the initial walls. In §
5, we then derive Theorems 1.1 and1.2 from the flow tree formulas for scattering diagram applied to the stability scatteringdiagram.The proof of Theorems 4.22 and 4.24 is given in § § ( N + , g ) -scattering diagrams, whichlive in M R , to auxiliary ( N + , h ) -scattering diagrams which live in M R , where h is a N + -graded Lie algebra constructed from g . In the second part of the proof in § M R . The images of the treesin M R are embedded graphs in M R with a balancing condition satisfied at each vertexdistinct from the root, that is, essentially tropical disks in M R [14, 33, 58]. The genericperturbation of either the skew-symmetric form or the position in M R of the root of theembedded trees guarantees that the vertices of the embedded trees are always containedin double intersections of walls, but never in triple intersections. The iteration of the localconsistency condition around double intersection of walls determines the contribution ofeach tree. In the language of DT invariants, this reduces the general wall-crossing formulato an iteration of the much simpler primitive wall-crossing formula.We note in Remark 4.25 that the perturbation of the position in M R of the root of thetrees used in the formulation of Theorems 1.2 and 4.24 is related to a way of perturbingscattering diagrams going back to the work of Gross-Pandharipande-Siebert [37]. Howeverthe perturbation of the skew-symmetric form used in the formulation of Theorems 1.1 and4.22 seems to be a completely new way to study scattering diagrams. Thus, most of thepaper is focused on the study of this perturbation of the skew-symmetric form and on theproof of Theorems 1.1 and 4.22.1.4. Related work.
Operads and wall-crossing.
Very recently, while this paper was being completed,Mozgovoy [56] proved using an operadic approach to the wall-crossing formula, a different
H ¨ULYA ARG ¨UZ AND PIERRICK BOUSSEAU formula for the coefficients F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) , called the attractor tree formula and originallyconjectured in [57], following [1, 3]. The key differences between the flow tree formula thatwe prove in this paper and the attractor tree formula proved in [56] are the following:the flow tree formula involves binary trees, requires a choice of generic perturbation, andis naturally phrased in terms of Lie algebras, whereas the attractor tree formula involvesgeneral (not necessarily binary) trees, does not require the choice of generic perturbation,and is naturally phrased in terms of associative algebras. It is currently not known if oneof these two formulas implies the other in a simple way.Both the flow tree formula and the attractor tree formula, formulated precisely andproved for DT invariants of quivers with potentials, are expected to have versions holdingmore generally in DT theory as long as a global understanding of the space of stabilityconditions is available. For example, the flow tree formula and the attractor tree formulaplay an important role in the conjectural proposal of Alexandrov and Pioline [3] (seealso [1]) for the construction of modular completions for generating series of DT invariantscounting coherent sheaves supported on surfaces inside Calabi-Yau 3-folds.1.4.2. BPS states.
From a physics perspective, a quiver with potential ( Q, W ) defines asupersymmetric quantum mechanical system with 4 supercharges [24] and the (refined) DTinvariants are counts of supersymmetric ground states, which often can be identified withsupersymmetric indices counting BPS particles in 4-dimensional N =
N =
N = single-centered invariants [51],which are expected to be of great physics relevance as describing BPS configurations ofsingle black holes in
N =
N =
Tropical curves and mirror symmetry.
In [14, 30, 37, 49], the perturbation of scatter-ing diagrams originally introduced by Gross-Pandharipande-Siebert [37] is used to expressgeneral walls of a consistent scattering diagram in terms of the initial walls using sumsover tropical curves. The connection between scattering diagrams and tropical geometryis particularly interesting from the point of view of mirror symmetry and connection withGromov–Witten theory, as shown in dimension 2 by Gross-Pandharipande-Siebert [37] ingenus 0 and the second author [11] in higher genus, and generalized to higher dimensionsin the work of the first author with Gross [6].
HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 9
However, the point of view adopted in the present paper is different: the main interestof the flow tree formula is that it is not written as a sum over tropical curves but as a sumover abstract trees. The resulting formula is therefore entirely combinatorial, and moreamenable to formal manipulations, as exemplified in [1–3]. In particular, the flow treeformula can be easily implemented efficiently on a computer, as done in [59].1.5.
Plan of the paper. In §
2, we introduce our notation for trees and the discreteattractor flow, and we prove the existence of suitably generic perturbations of the skew-symmetric form. In §
3, we first review the reconstruction of consistent scattering diagramsfrom initial data, and then we state the flow tree formula for scattering diagrams. Thetechnical heart of the paper is § § Acknowledgments.
We thank Boris Pioline and Sergey Mozgovoy for exchanges ontheir works [57] and [56]. 2.
Trees and flows In § § § § § N of finite rank r , and let M ∶ = Hom Z ( N , Z ) and M R ∶ = M ⊗ Z R . We introduce the notation I ∶ = { , . . . , r } , we fix a basis { e i } i ∈ I of N , and we denote(2.1) N + ∶ = { ∑ i ∈ I a i e i ∣ a i ≥ , ∑ i ∈ I a i > } . We also fix a skew-symmetric bilinear form η ∈ ⋀ M on N , a subset J ⊂ I of cardinality ∣ J ∣ , and let(2.2) e J ∶ = ∑ i ∈ J e i . Finally, for every n ∈ N , we denote n ⊥ ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) = } .2.1. Trees.Definition 2.1. A rooted tree T is a connected tree with a finite number of verticesand edges, with no divalent vertices, together with the additional data of a distinguishedunivalent vertex referred to as the root . We denote by V T the set of vertices of T , by R T the set with the root for unique element, V ○ T the set of interior vertices , which are vertices e e e e e e e e e e e e Figure 2.1.
Decorated binary rooted trees with ≤ V LT the set of univalent vertices that are not the root, or leaves of T . An isomorphism between two rooted trees T and T ′ is a bijection ϕ ∶ V T → V T ′ ,which maps adjacent vertices of T to adjacent vertices of T ′ and the root of T to the rootof T ′ . Definition 2.2. A J-decorated rooted tree is a rooted tree T endowed with a decorationof the leaves of T by { e i } i ∈ J , that is, a bijection ψ ∶ V LT → { e i } i ∈ J . An isomorphism betweentwo J -decorated rooted trees ( T, ψ ) and ( T ′ , ψ ′ ) is an isomorphism of tree ϕ ∶ V T → V T ′ compatible with the decorations, in the sense that ψ = ψ ′ ○ ϕ . Definition 2.3.
Let T be a rooted tree. The parent of a vertex v ∈ V T ∖ R T is the uniquevertex denoted by p ( v ) which is adjacent to v and lies on the shortest path between v andthe root. A child of a vertex v ∈ V T is a vertex for which v is a parent, and a descendant of v is any vertex which is either the child of v or is (recursively) the descendant of any ofthe children of v . Definition 2.4.
A rooted tree T is binary if the root has exactly one child and each interiorvertex has two children. Remark . We illustrate in Figure 2.1 some decorated binary rooted trees. Our binaryrooted trees are unordered in the sense that we do not fix an order on the set of children ofa vertex. In a binary rooted tree T , for every vertex v ∈ V ○ T , we denote by { v ′ , v ′′ } the setof the children of v , without specifying an ordering. Nonetheless, for some constructionsin what follows it will be sometimes useful to choose an ordering for the children. At anyoccasion where such a choice is made we will show that the result of the construction is infact independent of this choice. Lemma 2.6 .
Let T be a J -decorated binary rooted tree. Then, T has ∣ J ∣ vertices and ∣ J ∣ − edges.Proof. The proof is by induction on the cardinality ∣ J ∣ of J . The result is immediate for ∣ J ∣ =
1. For ∣ J ∣ >
1, write J = { i } ⊔ { i } i ∈∣ J ′ ∣ with ∣ J ′ ∣ = ∣ J ∣ −
1. Removing from T the legdecorated by e i , and erasing the resulting divalent vertex, we obtain a J ′ -decorated binary HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 11 rooted tree T ′ . The result follows since T ′ has two less edges and two less vertices than T . (cid:3) Lemma 2.7 .
The set T J of isomorphism classes of J -decorated binary rooted trees is ofcardinality ( ∣ J ∣ − ) !! = ∏ ∣ J ∣− k = ( k − ) .Proof. The proof is by induction on the cardinality ∣ J ∣ of J . The result is immediatefor ∣ J ∣ =
1. For ∣ J ∣ >
1, write J = { i } ⊔ { i } i ∈∣ J ′ ∣ with ∣ J ′ ∣ = ∣ J ∣ −
1. Removing from T the leg decorated by e i , we obtain a J ′ -decorated binary rooted tree T ′ with an addeddivalent vertex on one of its edges E . Conversely, given a J ′ -decorated binary rooted tree T ′ and an edge E of T ′ , then adding a divalent vertex v in the middle of E and gluinga leg decorated by e i to v , we obtain a J -decorated binary rooted tree. Therefore, wehave a bijection between T J and the set of pairs ( T ′ , E ) , where T ′ ∈ T J ′ and E is anedge of T ′ . By Lemma 2.6, a J ′ -decorated binary rooted tree has 2 ∣ J ′ ∣ − ∣ T J ∣ = ( ∣ J ′ ∣ − )∣ T J ′ ∣ = ( ∣ J ∣ − )∣ T J ′ ∣ . (cid:3) Skew-symmetric bilinear forms.
We view elements ω ∈ ⋀ M R as R -valued skew-symmetric bilinear forms on N , given by ω ∶ N × N Ð→ R (2.3) ( v , v ) z→ ω ( v , v ) . Definition 2.8.
For every tree T ∈ T J , and a vertex v ∈ V T , we define an associated element e v ∈ N + , referred to as the charge of v as follows: Let J T,v ⊂ J be the subset of indices withwhich the leaves that are descendant to v are labeled, that is, j ∈ J T,v if and only if theleaf decorated by e j is a descendant of v . Then, we set(2.4) e v ∶ = e J T,v = ∑ i ∈ J T,v e i . Note that if v is the leaf decorated by e i , then the associated charge e v = e i . For v ∈ V ○ T ,the sets J T,v ′ and J T,v ′′ are disjoint, and we have e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ . If v is the root of T or thechild of the root of T , then J T,v = J and e v = e J . Lemma 2.9 .
For every tree T ∈ T J and interior vertex v ∈ V ○ T , the linear form ∧ M R Ð→ R (2.5) ω z→ ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) is not identically zero.Proof. As { e i } i ∈ I is a basis of N , the linear forms ω ↦ ω ( e i , e j ) for i, j ∈ I and i < j form abasis of the space of linear forms on ⋀ M R . We have(2.6) ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) = ∑ j ′ ∈ J T,v ′ ∑ j ′′ ∈ J T,v ′′ ω ( e j ′ , e j ′′ ) . As the sets J T,v ′ and J T,v ′′ are disjoint, each basis element ω ↦ ω ( e j ′ , e j ′′ ) with j ′ < j ′′ appears up to sign at most once in the sum (2.6). In particular, there are no cancellationsand ω ↦ ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) is not the zero linear form. (cid:3) Proposition 2.10 .
Let U J ⊂ ⋀ M R be the subset of ω ∈ ⋀ M R such that for every tree T ∈ T J and interior vertex v ∈ V ○ T , we have ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) ≠ . Then, the following holds: (i) U J is open and dense in ⋀ M R . (ii) For every ω ∈ U J , T ∈ T J and v ∈ V ○ T , we have ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ≠ and ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) ≠ . (iii) For every J ⊂ J ⊂ I , we have U J ⊂ U J .Proof. By Lemma 2.9, U J is the complement of finitely many hyperplanes in ⋀ M R . Thus,the statement in (i) follows. To show (ii), observe that as e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ , we have ω ( e v , e v ′ ) = ω ( e v ′′ , e v ′ ) and ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) = ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) . Finally, (iii) follows from the fact that every J -decorated binary rooted tree can be realized as a subtree of a J -decorated binary rootedtree. (cid:3) The discrete attractor flow.
We review the description of the discrete attractorflow introduced in [2, § Definition 2.11.
Fix a tree T ∈ T J , a skew-symmetric bilinear form ω ∈ U J ⊂ ⋀ M R and α ∈ e ⊥ J ⊂ M R . We also fix a labeling v ′ , v ′′ of children of vertices v ∈ V ○ T . The discreteattractor flow for ( T, ω, α ) is the map θ α,ωT ∶ R T ∪ V ○ T Ð→ M R (2.7) v z→ θ α,ωT,v defined inductively, following the flow on T starting at the root and ending at the leaves,as follows:(1) For the root vertex v ∈ R T , we set(2.8) θ α,ωT,v ∶ = α (2) For v ∈ V ○ T , and a child v ′ of v , we set(2.9) θ α,ωT,v = θ α,ωT,p ( v ) − θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ι e v ω . where p ( v ) is the parent of v , and for every n ∈ N , ι n ω = ω ( n, − ) ∈ M R .Note that since ω ∈ U J , we have ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ≠ v ∈ V ○ T by Proposition 2.10, andso (2.9) makes sense. Lemma 2.12 .
Using the notations of Defn. 2.11, we have for every v ∈ V ○ T : (2.10) θ α,ωT,v ∈ e ⊥ v ′ ∩ e ⊥ v ′′ ⊂ e ⊥ v , HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 13 and (2.11) θ α,ωT,v = θ α,ωT,p ( v ) − θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) ι e v ω . In particular, the discrete flow θ α,ωT defined as in (2.11) is independent of the choice oflabeling v ′ and v ′′ of children of vertices v ∈ V ○ T .Proof. We prove the result inductively following the flow on T starting at the root andending at the leaves. If v ∈ V ○ T is the child of the root of T , then θ α,ωT,v is given by (2.9). By(2.8), we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) = α and so(2.12) θ α,ωT,v ( e v ′ ) = α ( e v ′ ) − α ( e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) = . On the other hand, as α ∈ e ⊥ J , we have α ( e v ) = α ( e J ) =
0, and so, using e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ , wehave α ( e v ′′ ) = − α ( e v ′ ) . As we also have ω ( e v , e v ′ ) = − ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) , we finally obtain(2.13) θ α,ωT,v ( e v ′′ ) = α ( e v ′′ ) + α ( e v ′′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) = . Similarly, if v ∈ V ○ T is not the root of T , then θ α,ωT,v is given by (2.9) and so(2.14) θ α,ωT,v ( e v ′ ) = θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) − θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) = . By the induction hypothesis, we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ) = e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ , we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ ) = − θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) . As we also have ω ( e v , e v ′ ) = − ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) , we finally obtain (2.11)and(2.15) θ α,ωT,v ( e v ′′ ) = θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ ) + θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′ ) ω ( e v , e v ′′ ) = . (cid:3) Generic skew-symmetric bilinear forms.
Recall that we are fixing a skew-symmetricbilinear form η ∈ ⋀ M . Definition 2.13.
We denote by T ηJ the set of trees T ∈ T J such that η ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) ≠ v is the child of the root of T . Definition 2.14.
A point α ∈ M R is ( J, η ) -generic if α ∈ e ⊥ J and for every tree T ∈ T ηJ , wehave α ( e v ′ ) ≠
0, where v is the child of the root of T .Note that for T ∈ T ηJ and v the child of the root of T , we have e v ′ + e v ′′ = e v = e J , andso, if α ∈ e ⊥ J , then α ( e v ′ ) ≠ α ( e v ′′ ) ≠
0. Equivalently, a point α ∈ e ⊥ J is ( J, η ) -generic if α ∉ e ⊥ J ′ for every strict subset J ′ of J such that η ( e J , e J ′ ) ≠ Definition 2.15.
Let α ∈ e ⊥ J be a ( J, η ) -generic point. A skew-symmetric bilinear form ω ∈ U J ⊂ ⋀ M R is called ( J, α ) -generic if for every T ∈ T ηJ and v ∈ V ○ T , we have(2.16) θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ≠ θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ ) ≠ . We denote by U J,α ⊂ U J the set of ( J, α ) -generic skew-symmetric bilinear forms. Lemma 2.16 .
Using the notations of Defn. 2.15, for every T ∈ T ηJ and v ∈ V ○ T , we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ) = and θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) = − θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ ) .Proof. As e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ , it is enough to show that θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ) =
0. If v is the child of theroot, then θ α,ωT,p ( v ) = α by (2.8), and so, as α ∈ e ⊥ J , we have α ( e v ) = α ( e J ) =
0. If v is not thechild of the root, the result follows by (2.10) of Lemma 2.12 applied to the parent p ( v ) of v . (cid:3) Lemma 2.17 .
Let α ∈ e ⊥ J be a ( J, η ) -generic point, T ∈ T ηJ and v ∈ V T . Denote by v , . . . , v m the unique sequence of vertices of T such that v is the root of T , v m = v , andfor every ≤ a ≤ m − , v a + is a child of v a . Then, the following holds. (i) The elements e v , . . . , e v m are linearly independent in N . (ii) For every ≤ a, b ≤ m , the map U J Ð→ R ω z→ θ α,ωT,v a ( e v b ) is a rational function with R -coefficients, in the variables given by the linear maps U J Ð→ R ω z→ ω ( e v a ′ , e v b ′ ) for ≤ a ′ , b ′ ≤ m and min ( a ′ , b ′ ) ≤ a . (iii) For every ≤ a ≤ m − , the map U J Ð→ R ω z→ θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) is not identically zero.Proof. (i) Assume that ∑ mi = a i e v i = a i ≠
0. Let i min be the smallest index i suchthat a i ≠
0. There exists j ∈ J T,v i min such that j ∉ J T,v i for every i > i ′ , and so we obtain acontradiction.(ii) We prove this by induction on a . For a = v is the root of T , and so by (2.8) wehave θ α,ωT,v ( e v b ) = α ( e b ) which is constant as a function of ω . Now, assume that the resultholds for a ≥
0. We have v a + ∈ V ○ T , and so by (2.9),(2.17) θ α,ωT,v a + ( e v b ) = θ α,ωT,v a ( e v b ) − θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) ω ( e v a + , e v a + ) ω ( e v a + , e v b ) . HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 15
By the induction hypothesis, θ α,ωT,v a ( e v b ) and θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) are rational functions in the vari-ables ω ( e v a ′ , e v b ′ ) with min ( a ′ , b ′ ) ≤ a and so in particular with min ( a ′ , b ′ ) ≤ a +
1. The onlyextra variables appearing in θ α,ωT,v a + ( e v b ) are ω ( e v a + , e v a + ) and ω ( e v a + , e v b ) , which are bothof the form ω ( e v a ′ , e v b ′ ) with min ( a ′ , b ′ ) ≤ a +
1. This shows the result for a + e v , . . . , e v m are linearly independent in N ,and so the linear forms ω ↦ ω ( e v a , e v b ) with a < b are linearly independent.We prove the result by induction on a . For a = v is the root of T and we have by(2.8) that θ α,ωT,v ( e v ) = α ( e v ) , which is nonzero because T ∈ T ηJ and α is ( J, η ) -generic (seeDefn. 2.14).Assume that the result holds for a and let us show that it holds for a +
1. We have v a + ∈ V ○ T and so by (2.9),(2.18) θ α,ωT,v a + ( e v a + ) = θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) − θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) ω ( e v a + , e v a + ) ω ( e v a + , e v a + ) . By Lemma 2.17 (ii), ω ↦ θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) and ω ↦ θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) are rational functions in thelinear forms ω ↦ ω ( e v a ′ , e v b ′ ) with min ( a ′ , b ′ ) ≤ a . In particular, they are algebraicallyindependent of ω ↦ ω ( e v a + , e v a + ) and ω ↦ ω ( e v a + , e v a + ) . On the other hand, by theinduction hypothesis, ω ↦ θ α,ωT,v a ( e v a + ) is not identically zero. We conclude that ω ↦ θ α,ωT,v a + ( e v a + ) is not identically zero. (cid:3) Proposition 2.18 .
Let α ∈ e ⊥ J be a ( J, η ) -generic point. Then the set U J,α ⊂ U J ⊂ ⋀ M R defined in Defn. 2.15 is the complement of finitely many algebraic hypersurfaces in U J . Inparticular, U J,α is open and dense in U J , and so in ⋀ M R .Proof. By Lemma 2.17 (ii) and (iii), for every T ∈ T ηJ , v ∈ V ○ T and v ′ child of v , themap ω ↦ θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) is a not identically zero rational function. Therefore, the set { ω ∈ U J ∣ θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ≠ } is the complement of an algebraic hypersurface in U J . By definition, U J,α is the intersection of the finitely many sets of this form obtained by varying T , v , and v ′ . Hence, U J,α is the complement of finitely many algebraic hypersurfaces in U J and isopen and dense in U J . By Proposition 2.10, U J is open and dense in ⋀ M R , and so it isalso the case for U J,α . (cid:3) We end this section in a different direction: instead of fixing α ∈ e ⊥ J and looking for ( J, α ) -generic ω ∈ ⋀ M R , we look for all α ∈ e ⊥ J such that the fixed η ∈ ⋀ M R is ( J, α ) -generic. Lemma 2.19 .
Let T ∈ T ηJ and v ∈ V T . Denote by v , . . . , v m the unique sequence of verticesof T such that v is the root of T , v m = v , and for every ≤ a ≤ m − , v a + is a child of v a . Then for every ≤ a ≤ m − , the map e ⊥ J Ð→ M R (2.19) α z→ θ α,ηT,v a is linear, and the linear form e ⊥ J Ð→ R (2.20) α z→ θ α,ηT,v a ( e v a + ) is not identically zero.Proof. The result is easily proved by induction on a , using Lemma 2.17(i) and the fact thatthe linear form α ↦ θ α,ηT,v a ( e v a + ) is equal to the sum of the linear form α ↦ α ( e v a + ) and ofa linear combination of the linear forms α ↦ α ( e v b ) with b < a + (cid:3) Proposition 2.20 .
Let V J,η be the set of α ∈ e ⊥ J ⊂ M R such that α is ( J, η ) -generic and η is ( J, α ) -generic. Then V J,η is open and dense in e ⊥ J .Proof. It follows from Defn. 2.14 and Lemma 2.19 that V J,η is the complement of finitelymany hyperplanes in e ⊥ J . (cid:3) The flow tree map.
Let h = ⊕ n ∈N + h n be a Lie algebra over Q which is N + -graded,that is, such that [ h n , h n ] ⊂ h n + n for every n , n ∈ N + . We say that h is finitely N + -graded if its support Supp ( h ) ∶ = { n ∈ N + ∣ h n ≠ } is finite. Note that a finitely N + -gradedLie algebra is nilpotent. In what follows, we fix h = ⊕ n ∈N + h n a finitely N + -graded Liealgebra. For every x ∈ R − { } , we denote by sgn ( x ) the sign of x defined as follows:(2.21) sgn ( x ) = ⎧⎪⎪⎨⎪⎪⎩ x > , and − x < . Definition 2.21.
Fix a ( J, η ) -generic point α ∈ e ⊥ J ⊂ M R , a skew-symmetric bilinear form ω ∈ U J,α ⊂ ⋀ M R as in Defn. 2.15, a tree T ∈ T ηJ , and for every interior vertex v ∈ V ○ T alabeling v ′ and v ′′ of the children of v . We define a multilinear map(2.22) A α,ωJ,T,v ∶ ∏ i ∈ J T,v h e i Ð→ h e v for every v ∈ V LT ∪ V ○ T inductively, following the flow on T starting at the leaves and endingat the root, as follows:(1) If v ∈ V LT , that is, if v is a leaf of T decorated by some e i , we define A α,ωJ,T,v ∶ h e i → h e i as the identity map.(2) If v ∈ V ○ T , we set(2.23) ǫ α,ωT,v ∶ = − sgn ( θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ )) + sgn ( ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) ∈ { , , − } , HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 17 and(2.24) A α,ωJ,T,v ∶ = ǫ α,ωT,v [ A α,ωJ,T,v ′ , A α,ωJ,T,v ′′ ] , where [ A α,ωJ,T,v ′ , A α,ωJ,T,v ′′ ] is the composition of the maps A α,ωJ,T,v ′ ∶ ∏ j ∈ J v ′ h e j Ð→ h e v ′ and A α,ωJ,T,v ′′ ∶ ∏ j ∈ J v ′′ h e j Ð→ h e v ′′ with the Lie bracket [ − , − ] ∶ h e v ′ × h e v ′′ Ð→ h e v ′ + e v ′′ = h e v . Note that by the definition of U J , we have ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ ) ≠ v ∈ V ○ T . Moreover, byDefn. 2.15 of U J,α , we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ≠
0. Hence, both of the signs sgn ( ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) andsgn ( θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ )) in 2.23 make sense. Lemma 2.22 .
Using the notations of Defn. 2.21, for every v ∈ V ○ T , we have (2.25) A α,ωJ,T,v = − sgn ( θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ )) + sgn ( ω ( e v ′′ , e v ′ )) [ A α,ωJ,T,v ′′ , A α,ωJ,T,v ′ ] . In particular, the map A α,ωJ,T,v is independent of the choice of the labeling of the children v ′ and v ′′ of v ∈ V ○ T .Proof. Since the Lie bracket is skew-symmetric, we have [ A α,ωJ,T,v ′′ , A α,ωJ,T,v ′ ] = − [ A α,ωJ,T,v ′ , A α,ωJ,T,v ′′ ] .Moreover, since ω is skew-symmetric, we have sgn ( ω ( e v ′′ , e v ′ )) = − sgn ( ω ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) . Finally,by Lemma 2.16, we have sgn ( θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′′ )) = − sgn ( θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ )) . (cid:3) Definition 2.23.
For every ( J, η ) -generic α ∈ e ⊥ J , ω ∈ U J,α and T ∈ T ηJ , let(2.26) A α,ωJ,T ∶ ∏ i ∈ J h e i Ð→ h e J be the linear map associated to T , defined by A α,ωJ,T ∶ = A α,ωJ,T,v , where v is the child of the rootof T . For every ( J, η ) -generic α ∈ e ⊥ J and ω ∈ U J,α , we define the flow tree map A α,ωJ withinitial point α , by summing over all the trees in T ηJ :(2.27) A α,ωJ ∶ = ∑ T ∈T ηJ A α,ωJ,T . Scattering diagrams In § § § Consistent scattering diagrams.
Throughout this section, we fix a free abeliangroup N of finite rank ℓ , and let M ∶ = Hom ( N, Z ) and M R ∶ = M ⊗ Z R . We fix a basis { s i } ≤ i ≤ ℓ of N , and we denote(3.1) N + ∶ = { ℓ ∑ i = a i s i ∣ a i ∈ Z ≥ , ℓ ∑ i = a i > } . For every n ∈ N − { } , we denote n ⊥ ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) = } , and for every subset d ⊂ M R ,we denote d ⊥ ∶ = { n ∈ N + ∣ θ ( n ) = θ ∈ d } . Finally, we fix a finitely N + -graded Liealgebra g = ⊕ n ∈ N + g n over Q , that is, a N + -graded Lie algebra whose support(3.2) Supp ( g ) ∶ = { n ∈ N + ∣ g n ≠ } is a finite set. In particular, g is a nilpotent Lie algebra.For us, a cone in M R is a closed, convex, rational, polyhedral cone in M R , that is, asubset of M R of the form(3.3) σ = { q ∑ i = λ i m i ∣ λ i ∈ R ≥ } , m , . . . , m q ∈ M. By definition, the codimension of a cone is the codimension of the subspace of M R it spans.A wall is a cone of codimension 1 and a joint is a cone of codimension 2. If d is a wall in M R , we denote by n d the unique primitive element in N + ∩ d ⊥ , referred to as the normalvector to the wall . A face of a cone σ is a subset of the form σ ∩ n ⊥ where n ∈ N satisfies θ ( n ) ≥ θ ∈ σ . Note that every face of a cone is itself a cone, and every intersectionof faces of a given cone is also a face. Finally, a cone complex in M R is a finite collection S of cones in M R , such that any face of a cone in S is also a cone in S , and the intersectionof any two cones in S is a face of each. Definition 3.1.
For every finite subset P ⊂ N + , we denote by S P the cone complex in M R whose cones are indexed by disjoint unions of sets P = P + ⊔ P ⊔ P − with P non-empty andgiven by σ ( P + , P , P − ) ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) = n ∈ P , ± θ ( n ) ≥ n ∈ P ± } . We denote byWall P the set of walls in S P .In what follows, we take for the finite set P ⊂ N + in Defn. 3.1 the support Supp ( g ) ⊂ N + of the Lie algebra g defined by (3.2). Definition 3.2. A ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram is a map φ ∶ Wall
Supp ( g ) → g with the propertythat φ ( d ) ∈ ⊕ n ∈ Z ≥ n d g n ⊂ g for every d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) . For every n ∈ Z ≥ n d , the projection of φ ( d ) on g n is denoted by φ ( d ) n . Definition 3.3.
A smooth path p ∶ [ , ] → M R is g -generic if(1) the endpoints p ( ) and p ( ) do not lie in any wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) ,(2) p does not meet any cone of S Supp ( g ) of codimension > γ with walls d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) are transversal.Note that, given a g -generic path p ∶ [ , ] → M R there is a finite set of points(3.4) 0 < t < . . . < t k < p ( t i ) lies in ⋃ d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) d , and for each of these points t i there is a unique wall d i ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) such that p ( t i ) ∈ d i . Given a ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ and a g -generic HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 19 path p ∶ [ , ] → M R , we define the path-ordered product along p of φ by(3.5) Ψ p ,φ ∶ = exp ( ǫ k φ ( d k )) ⋅ exp ( ǫ k − φ ( d k − )) . . . exp ( ǫ φ ( d )) ⋅ exp ( ǫ φ ( d )) ∈ G , where ǫ i ∈ { ± } is the sign of the derivative of t ↦ − p ( t )( n d i ) at t = t i , G is the unipotentgroup associated to the nilpotent Lie algebra g , and exp ∶ g → G is the exponential map. Definition 3.4. A ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ is consistent if Ψ p ,φ = Ψ p ,φ for every two g -generic paths p and p .Note that Defn. 3.4 is equivalent to the definition of the consistency mentioned in theintroduction, which requires the composition of all wall-crossing automorphisms on wallsadjacent to a given joint to be identity. We set M + R ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) > ∀ n ∈ N + } and M − R ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) < ∀ n ∈ N + } . The cone complex S Supp ( g ) is disjoint from M + R and M − R . Therefore, if φ is a consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram, we can define an elementΨ φ ∈ G by Ψ φ ∶ = Ψ p ,φ , where p is a g -generic path with initial point in M + R and final point in M − R . By consistency of φ , Ψ p ,φ is independent of the particular choice of path or endpoints. Proposition 3.5 .
The map φ ↦ Ψ φ is a bijection between consistent ( N + , g ) -scatteringdiagrams and elements of the group G .Proof. In the setting of scattering diagrams as cone complexes, this is exactly Proposition3.3 of [13]. In the setting of scattering diagrams as set of walls, this result is originallyTheorem 2.1.6 of [46] (see also Theorem 1.17 of [34]). Note that Proposition 3.3 of [13]in fact shows that these two possible points of view on scattering diagrams are in factequivalent. (cid:3)
Initial data for scattering diagrams.
From now on, we assume given a real-valuedskew-symmetric bilinear form ⟨ − , − ⟩ on N such that the finitely N + -graded Lie algebra g = ⊕ n ∈ N + g n satisfies(3.6) [ g n , g n ] = ⟨ n , n ⟩ = . In this section we review the notion of initial data for a ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram.For every primitive n ∈ N + , we have a direct sum decomposition g = g n, + ⊕ g n, ⊕ g n, − of g into Lie subalgebras(3.7) g n, + ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + ⟨ n,n ⟩> g n , g n, ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + ⟨ n,n ⟩= g n , g n, − ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + ⟨ n,n ⟩< g n . It follows that, denoting by G n, + ∶ = exp ( g n, + ) , G n, ∶ = exp ( g n, ) , G n, − ∶ = exp ( g n, − ) thecorresponding subgroups of G , every element g ∈ G can be written uniquely as a product g = g n, + g n, g n, − with g n, + ∈ G n, + , g n, ∈ G n, , g n, − ∈ G n, − . We have a further decomposition g n, = g ∥ n, ⊕ g ⊥ n, , where(3.8) g ∥ n, ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ Z ≥ n g n , g ⊥ n, ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + ⟨ n,n ⟩= n ∉ Z ≥ n g n . If n + n = kn with ⟨ n, n ⟩ = ⟨ n, n ⟩ =
0, then ⟨ n , n ⟩ = [ g n , g n ] = [ g n, , g ⊥ n, ] ⊂ g ⊥ n, . Hence, g ⊥ n, is a Lie ideal in g n, and so thesubgroup G ⊥ n, ∶ = exp ( g ⊥ n, ) is normal. We denote by(3.9) π n, ∶ G n, Ð→ G n, / G ⊥ n, = G ∥ n, the quotient group morphism, where G ∥ n, ∶ = exp ( g ∥ n, ) . Given g = g n, + g n, g n, − , set g ∥ n, ∶ = π n, ( g n, ) . This defines a map π n ∶ G Ð→ G ∥ n, (3.10) g z→ g ∥ n, . Proposition 3.6 .
The map π ∶ G Ð→ ∏ n ∈ N + n primitive G ∥ n, (3.11) g z→ ( π n ( g )) n is a bijection.Proof. This is Proposition 3.3.2 of [46]. See also Proposition 1.20 of [34]. (cid:3)
Definition 3.7.
For every n ∈ N + , the initial data I φ,n of a consistent ( N + , g ) -scatteringdiagram φ is the projection on g n of(3.12) log ( π n ( Ψ φ )) ∈ g ∥ n, = ⊕ n ′ ∈ Z ≥ n g n ′ , where n is the unique primitive element of N + such that n ∈ Z ≥ n , and Ψ φ is the elementof G attached to φ as in Proposition 3.5. Proposition 3.8 .
The map φ ↦ ( I φ,n ) n ∈ N + is a bijection between equivalence classes ofconsistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagrams and elements of g = ⊕ n ∈ N + g n . In other words, forevery ( I n ) n ∈ N + ∈ g = ⊕ n ∈ N + g n , there exists a unique consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ with initial data ( I φ,n ) n ∈ N + = ( I n ) n ∈ N + .Proof. This is an immediate consequence of Propositions 3.5 and 3.6. (cid:3)
The next Proposition 3.9 describes how to read the initial data I φ,n of a consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ from the walls. HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 21
Proposition 3.9 .
Let φ be a consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram, n ∈ N + and n theunique primitive element of N + such that n ∈ Z ≥ n . For every wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) with n d = n and containing the attractor point ⟨ n, − ⟩ ∈ M R for n , we have (3.13) φ ( d ) n = I φ,n . Proof.
This follows from Theorem 1.21-(1) of [34]. (cid:3)
Note that in the context of Proposition 3.9 there are in general several walls d with n d = n and containing the attractor point ⟨ n, − ⟩ . Proposition 3.9 implies in particular that φ ( d ) n does not depend on the choice of d .3.3. Universality of the reconstruction of scattering diagrams from initial data.
The next proposition shows that the elements φ ( d ) ∈ g assigned to walls d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) bya consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ are determined by the initial data ( I φ,n ) n ∈ N + viauniversal formulas. Definition 3.10.
A finite multiset Γ = { γ i } ≤ i ≤ r of elements of N + is a finite unorderedcollection γ , . . . , γ r of elements of N + where multiple occurrences of elements are allowed.For every n ∈ N + , the multiplicity m Γ ( n ) ∈ Z ≥ of n in Γ is the number of occurrences of n in Γ. Given a multiset Γ, we denote by Γ the set of n ∈ N + such that m Γ ( n ) ≠
0. The setof finite multisets of elements of N + is denoted by mult ( N + ) . Proposition 3.11 .
For every Γ ∈ mult ( N + ) and d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) , there exists a uniquemap (3.14) F g , d Γ ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n Ð→ g ∑ n ∈ Γ n which is a homogeneous polynomial of degree m Γ ( n ) in restriction to the factor g n , and suchthat for every consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ and γ ∈ Z ≥ n d ∈ N + , the component φ ( d ) γ of φ ( d ) in g γ is given by (3.15) φ ( d ) γ = ∑ Γ ∈ mult ( N + )∑ n ∈ Γ n = γ F g , d Γ (( I φ,n ) n ∈ Γ ) , where the sum is over all finite multisets Γ of N + whose elements sum up to γ .Proof. We first prove the uniqueness part. Assume that we have two collections ( F g , d Γ ) and ( F g , d Γ ) of maps satisfying the conditions of Proposition 3.11. By Proposition 3.8,there exists a consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram for every initial data. Therefore (3.15)implies the equality of maps(3.16) ∑ Γ ∈ mult ( N + )∑ n ∈ Γ = γ ( F g , d Γ ) = ∑ Γ ∈ mult ( N + )∑ n ∈ Γ n = γ ( F g , d Γ ) . For every Γ ∈ mult ( N + ) with ∑ n ∈ Γ n = γ , isolating on both sides of (3.16) the part homo-geneous of degree m Γ ( n ) in restriction to each factor g n , we obtain ( F g , d Γ ) = ( F g , d Γ ) .We now prove the existence claim. Let δ ∶ N → Z be an additive map such that δ ( N + ) ⊂ Z ≥ . For every k ∈ Z ≥ , we define the Lie subalgebra g > k ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + δ ( n )> k g n ⊂ g . We prove byinduction on k that for every k ∈ Z ≥ , Γ ∈ mult ( N + ) and d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) , there exists a map(3.17) F g , d k, Γ ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n Ð→ g ∑ n ∈ Γ n , such that for every consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ and γ ∈ Z ≥ n d , we have(3.18) φ ( d ) γ = ∑ Γ ∈ mult ( N + )∑ n ∈ Γ n = γ F g , d k, Γ (( I φ,n ) n ∈ Γ ) mod g > k . As g is nilpotent, we have g > k = k large enough, and so it will be enough to take F g , d Γ ∶ = F g , d k, Γ for k large enough.For the base step of the induction, we have g > = g , so φ ( d ) γ = g > for every φ , d , γ , and so we can take F g , d , Γ = d . For the induction step, fix k ≥ F g , d k, Γ is know. We have to show the existence ofthe maps F g , d k + , Γ . For every wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) and for every consistent ( N + , g ) -scatteringdiagram φ , define(3.19) φ ( d ) ∶ = ∑ Γ ∈ mult ( N + )∑ n ∈ Γ n ∈ Z ≥ n d F g , d k, Γ (( I φ,n ) n ∈ Γ ) . By the induction hypothesis, we have(3.20) φ ( d ) = φ ( d ) mod g > k . By [34, Definition-Lemma C.2], a joint j ∈ S Supp ( g ) , that is a codimension 2 cone, is perpendicular if for every wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) containing j , the contraction ι n d ⟨ − , − ⟩ = ⟨ n d , − ⟩ of ⟨ − , − ⟩ with the normal vector n d to d is not contained in the R -linear span of j . For everyperpendicular joint j ∈ S Supp ( g ) , let Wall ( j ) be the set of walls d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) containing j , and let p j ∶ [ , ] → M R be a g -generic loop around j , intersecting only once each wall d ∈ Wall ( j ) and no other wall. For every wall d ∈ Wall ( j ) , denote by t jd ∈ [ , ] the pointsuch that p j ( t jd ) ∈ d , and denote by ǫ jd ∈ { ± } the sign of the derivative of t ↦ − p j ( t )( n d ) at t = t jd . We label d , . . . , d m the elements of Wall ( j ) so that 0 < t jd < ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ < t jd m <
1. By Defn.3.4 the relation(3.21) exp ( ǫ jd m φ ( d m )) ⋅ exp ( ǫ jd m − φ ( d m − )) . . . exp ( ǫ jd φ ( d )) ⋅ exp ( ǫ jd φ ( d )) = HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 23 holds for every consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ . Therefore, it follows from (3.20)that(3.22) log ( exp ( ǫ jd m φ ( d m )) . . . exp ( ǫ jd φ ( d ))) = ∑ γ ∈ N + δ ( γ )≥ k + g j φ,γ for some g j φ,γ ∈ g n . Using the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula to compute the left-hand side of (3.22), together with (3.19), we deduce that for every Γ ∈ mult ( N + ) , thereexists a map G j Γ ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n → g ∑ n ∈ Γ n , which is a homogeneous polynomial of degree m Γ ( n ) in restriction to the factor g n , such that for every consistent ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram φ and γ ∈ N + with δ ( γ ) ≥ k +
1, we have(3.23) g j φ,γ = ∑ Γ ∈ mult ( N + )∑ ri = γ i = γ G j Γ (( I φ,n ) n ∈ Γ ) . where the sum is over multisets Γ = { γ i } i ∈ I for some index set I , whose elements sum upto γ inN + . According to Appendix C.1 of [34] (see the Equations defining ˜ D k + and D [ j ] before Lemma C.6), for every wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) we have(3.24) φ ( d ) = φ ( d ) + ∑ γ ∈ Z ≥ n d δ ( γ )= k + I φ,γ − ∑ γ ∈ Z ≥ n d ∑ j ǫ jd j g j φ,γ mod g > k + , where the sum over j is over the perpendicular joints j such that d ⊂ j − R ≥ ⟨ n d , − ⟩ , andwhere d j ∈ Wall ( j ) is the wall containing j and contained in j − R ≥ ⟨ n d , − ⟩ . Therefore, forevery Γ ∈ mult ( N + ) with ∑ n ∈ Γ n ∈ Z ≥ n d , we can take(3.25) F g , d k + , Γ = F g , d k, Γ + I d k + , Γ − ∑ j ǫ jd j G j Γ . where I d k + , Γ is the identity map g γ → g γ if Γ = { γ } with γ ∈ Z ≥ n d such that δ ( γ ) = k + I d k + , Γ = (cid:3) The flow tree formula for scattering diagrams
In this section we prove our main result, Theorem 4.22, which provides an explicitdescription of the maps F g , d Γ in (3.14) in terms of the (specialization of the) flow tree maps.4.1. ( N + , h ) -scattering diagrams. As in §
3, we work with ( N + , g ) -scattering diagrams.We fix a wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) , γ ∈ Z ≥ n d ⊂ N + proportional to the normal vector n d to d , and a multiset Γ = { γ i } i ∈ I ∈ mult ( N + ) of elements of N + such that ∑ i ∈ I γ i = γ , where I = { , . . . r } is some index set. Applying Proposition 3.11 to the multiset Γ = { γ i } i ∈ I andto the wall d , we obtain a map(4.1) F h , d Γ ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n → g γ . Our goal is to state a formula for the map F d , d Γ . As a first step to achieve this goal, wedefine in this section another class of scattering diagrams, referred to as ( N + , h ) -scatteringdiagrams.We introduce a rank r free abelian group N ∶ = ⊕ i ∈ I Z e i with a basis { e i } i ∈ I , and theadditive map p ∶ N Ð→ N (4.2) e i z→ γ i . For every J ⊂ I , let e J ∶ = ∑ i ∈ J e i . (4.3)In particular, we have p ( e I ) = γ . Following the notations set-up in §
2, we denote M ∶ = Hom ( N , Z ) , M R ∶ = M ⊗ R and N + ∶ = { ∑ i ∈ I a i e i ∣ a i ≥ , ∑ i ∈ I a i > } . The map p ∶ N → N defines by duality a linear map q ∶ M R Ð→ M R (4.4) θ z→ θ ○ p . We define a skew-symmetric bilinear form η ∈ ⋀ M by η ( e i , e j ) ∶ = ⟨ γ i , γ j ⟩ (4.5)for every i, j ∈ I . In other words, η is the pullback of ⟨ − , − ⟩ by p . Definition 4.1.
We define a N + -graded Lie algebra h = ⊕ n ∈N + h n as follows. First, weintroduce the finite set(4.6) N + e ∶ = { ∑ i ∈ I a i e i ∈ N + ∣ a i ∈ { , } ∀ i ∈ I } = { e J ∣ J ⊂ I, J ≠ ∅ } ⊂ N + . Then, as vector spaces, we set h n ∶ = g p ( n ) if n ∈ N + e , and h n ∶ = x ∈ h n and y ∈ h n , we define the bracket [ x, y ] as being the bracket [ x, y ] in h n + n = g p ( n )+ p ( n ) if n , n , n + n ∈ N + e , and as being 0 else.One checks easily that this defines a Lie bracket on h and that the resulting Lie algebrais finitely N + -graded: by construction, the support Supp ( h ) = { n ∈ N + ∣ h n ≠ } of h iscontained in N + e . It follows from (3.6) that [ h n , h n ] = η ( n , n ) =
0. Thus, we canconsider ( N + , h ) -scattering diagrams as in Defn. 3.2 and their initial data as in Defn. 3.7,where N + , g and ⟨ − , − ⟩ ∈ ⋀ M are replaced by N + , h and η ∈ ⋀ M .Let e ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) be a wall in M R with normal vector n e = e I and which contains theimage q ( d ) of the wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) by the map q ∶ M R → M R as in (4.4). Applying HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 25
Proposition 3.11 to the multiset Γ e ∶ = { e i } i ∈ I ∈ mult ( N + ) of elements of N + and to the wall e ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) , we obtain a map(4.7) F h , e Γ e ∶ ∏ i ∈ I h e i → h e I , where we used the fact that, as { e i } i ∈ I is a basis of N , Γ e = Γ e = { e i } i ∈ I .4.2. From ( N + , g ) to ( N + , h ) -scattering diagrams. The main result of this section,Theorem 4.9 provides a comparison of the map F g , d Γ in (4.1) and the map F h , e Γ e in (4.7). Toprove it, we first need to compare the Lie algebras g and h . We do this by going throughan intermediate N + -graded Lie algebra ˜ g = ⊕ n ∈ N + ˜ g n (4.8)defined using the map p ∶ N → N in (4.2) and the finite subset N + e ⊂ N + in (4.6).4.2.1. The Lie algebra ˜ g . Definition 4.2.
Define the Lie algebra ˜ g as follows: As vector spaces, we set ˜ g n ∶ = g n if n ∈ p ( N + e ) , and ˜ g n ∶ = x ∈ ˜ g n and y ∈ ˜ g n , we define the bracket [ x, y ] as beingthe bracket [ x, y ] in ˜ g n + n = g n + n if n , n , n + n ∈ p ( N + e ) , and as being 0 else.One checks easily that this defines a Lie bracket on ˜ g and that the resulting Lie algebrais finitely N + -graded. It follows from (3.6) that [ ˜ g n , ˜ g n ] = ⟨ n , n ⟩ =
0. As γ = p ( e ) ∈ Supp ( ˜ g ) , there exists a unique wall ˜ d ∈ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) such that d ⊂ ˜ d . Applying Proposition3.11 for ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram to the multiset Γ ∈ mult ( N + ) and the wall ˜ d , we obtaina map(4.9) F ˜ g , ˜ h Γ ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ ˜ g n → ˜ g γ . Proposition 4.3 .
The maps F g , d Γ in (4.1) and F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ in (4.9) are equal: F g , d Γ = F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ .Proof. Note that by definition of ˜ g , we have ˜ g n = g n for every n ∈ Γ ∪ { γ } , and so the maps F g , d Γ and F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ have the same domain and codomain. The result follows from the fact thatthe algorithmic construction of F g , d Γ reviewed in the proof of Proposition 3.11 involves onlybrackets [ x, y ] with x ∈ g n , y ∈ g n , [ x, y ] ∈ g n + n and n , n , n + n ∈ p ( N + e ) . (cid:3) In what remains, we compare the Lie algebras ˜ g and h . Proposition 4.4 .
Let q ∶ M R → M R be the linear map defined in (4.4) . Then, (i) For every n ∈ N , the preimage q − ( n ⊥ ) of the hyperplane n ⊥ ⊂ M R under q ∶ M R → M R is the hyperplane ( p ( n )) ⊥ ⊂ M R . (ii) For every cone σ ∈ S Supp ( ˜ g ) , the image q ( σ ) of σ by q ∶ M R → M R is a cone q ( σ ) ∈ S Supp ( h ) . xyz σ + σ − σ Figure 4.1.
Paths around a codimension two cone σ . Proof.
The first part (i) of the Lemma follows immediately since we have θ ∈ q − ( n ⊥ ) if andonly if ( q ( θ ))( n ) = θ ( p ( n )) = σ ∈ S Supp ( ˜ g ) implies that thereexists a partition of the set Supp ( ˜ g ) ⊂ N + into subsets Supp ( ˜ g ) = P + ⊔ P ⊔ P − such that(4.10) σ ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) = n ∈ P , ± θ ( n ) ≥ n ∈ P ± } . Define Q ± ∶ = { n ∈ Supp ( h )∣ p ( n ) ∈ P ± } and Q ∶ = { n ∈ Supp ( h )∣ p ( n ) ∈ P } . As Supp ( ˜ g ) = p ( Supp ( h )) , we have Supp ( h ) = Q + ⊔ Q ⊔ Q − . Using that θ ( p ( n )) = ( q ( θ ))( n ) for every n ∈ N , we obtain q ( σ ) = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) = n ∈ Q , ± θ ( n ) ≥ n ∈ Q ± } . Hence, q ( σ ) ∈ S Supp ( h ) by Defn. 3.1. (cid:3) Proposition 4.5 .
For every n ∈ N , the attractor points ⟨ p ( n ) , − ⟩ for p ( n ) and ι n η = η ( n, − ) for n as in Proposition 3.9 are related by: (4.11) q (⟨ p ( n ) , − ⟩) = ι n η , where η ∈ ⋀ M is defined by (4.5) .Proof. For every m ∈ N , we have(4.12) ( q (⟨ p ( n ) , − ⟩))( m ) = ⟨ p ( n ) , p ( m )⟩ = η ( n, m ) = ( ι n η )( m ) , where the first equality uses (4.4) and the second equality uses (4.5). (cid:3) The ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram and consistency. In this section, we construct a con-sistent ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram φ ρ starting from a consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram ρ . Let ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( h ) → h be a consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram. Following [55, § ρ ∶ S Supp ( h ) → h of ρ where the set of walls Wall Supp ( h ) is HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 27 replaced by the set S Supp ( h ) of all cones. For a cone σ ∈ S Supp ( h ) , there exists by Defn. 3.1a decomposition Supp ( h ) = P + ⊔ P ⊔ P − such that(4.13) σ ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( n ) = n ∈ P , ± θ ( n ) ≥ n ∈ P ± } . We denote σ + ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( m ) > , ∀ m ∈ P + ∪ P } and σ − ∶ = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( m ) < , ∀ m ∈ P + ∪ P } . Let p ∶ [ , ] → M R be a h -generic path with p ( ) ∈ σ + and p ( ) ∈ σ − (see Figure4.1). By (3.5), we have the corresponding path-ordered product Ψ p ,ρ ∈ H ∶ = exp ( h ) , andwe define(4.14) ρ ( σ ) ∶ = log Ψ p ,ρ ∈ h . By consistency of ρ , this definition of ρ ( σ ) is independent of the choice of the path p .By Defn. 4.1 and Defn. 4.2, we have ˜ g = ⊕ n ∈ p (N + e ) g n and h = ⊕ n ∈N + e g p ( n ) . We denote by ν ∶ h → ˜ g the natural projection map sending h n = g p ( n ) onto g p ( n ) = ˜ g p ( n ) . We now definea ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram φ ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) → ˜ g . For every wall σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) , the image q ( σ ) of σ by q is a cone in S Supp ( h ) by Proposition 4.4 (ii). Therefore, one can applied ρ to σ to obtain ρ ( σ ) ∈ h , and finally ν ∶ h → ˜ g : φ ρ ( σ ) ∶ = ν ( ρ ( q ( σ ))) ∈ ˜ g . (4.15) Lemma 4.6 .
For every consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( h ) → h , the ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram φ ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) → ˜ g defined by (4.15) is consistent.Proof. Let p ∶ [ , ] → M R be a ˜ g -generic loop. Let q be a small generic perturbationof t ↦ q ( p ( t )) such that, for every σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) and t ′ ∈ [ , ] with p ( t ′ ) ∈ d ′ , theperturbed path t ↦ q ( t ) goes from ( q ( σ )) − to ( q ( σ )) + , or from ( q ( σ )) + to ( q ( σ )) − , in asmall neighborhood of t ′ . By the definition of φ ρ in (4.15), the group element Ψ p ,φ ρ is theimage in ˜ G = exp ( ˜ g ) of the group element Ψ q ,ρ by exp ( ν ) ∶ H → ˜ G . By consistency of ρ wehave Ψ q ,ρ = id, and hence Ψ p ,φ ρ = id. (cid:3) Lemma 4.7 .
For every consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( h ) → h , the ini-tial data of ρ and of the ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram φ ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) → ˜ g defined by (4.15) are related as follows: for every n ∈ Supp ( ˜ g ) = p ( Supp ( h )) , we have (4.16) I φ ρ ,n = ∑ m ∈ Supp ( h ) p ( m )= n ν ( I ρ,m ) , where I φ ρ ,n and I ρ,m are the initial data of φ ρ and ρ as in Defn. 3.7.Proof. Let σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) be a wall containing the attractor point ⟨ n, − ⟩ for n and suchthat n ∈ Z ≥ n σ . By Proposition 3.9 applied to φ , we have(4.17) I φ,n = ( φ ( σ )) n . Let ∆ ⊂ Supp ( h ) be the subset of primitive m ∈ Supp ( h ) such that p ( m ) ∈ Z ≥ n σ . ByProposition 4.4, for every primitive m ∈ Supp ( h ) , the hyperplane m ⊥ contains the cone q ( σ ) if and only if m ∈ ∆.Let p ∶ [ , ] → M R be a h -generic path with p ( ) ∈ ( q ( σ )) + and p ( ) ∈ ( q ( σ )) − . Forevery m ∈ ∆, we have θ ( m ) > θ ∈ ( q ( σ )) + and θ ( m ) < θ ∈ ( q ( σ )) − .Therefore, up to straightening p , one can assume that for every m ∈ ∆, the path p intersectsthe hyperplane m ⊥ exactly once. We can also assume that for every m ∈ ∆, the intersectionof p with m ⊥ lies in a wall d m ⊂ m ⊥ containing the cone q ( σ ) . For every m, m ′ ∈ ∆, wehave η ( m, m ′ ) = ⟨ p ( m ) , p ( m ′ )⟩ =
0, and so [ ρ ( d m ) , ρ ( d m ′ )] =
0. Thus it follows from thedefinition (4.15) of φ ρ that(4.18) φ ρ ( σ ) n = ∑ m ∈ ∆ , k ∈ Z ≥ p ( km )= n ν ( ρ ( d m ) km ) . By Proposition 4.5, for every m ∈ ∆ and k ∈ Z ≥ such that p ( km ) = n , we have ι km η = q (⟨ n, − ⟩) ∈ q ( σ ) ⊂ d m . We deduce from Proposition 3.9 applied to ρ that(4.19) ρ ( d m ) km = I ρ,km . Equation (4.16) follows from (4.17)-(4.18)-(4.19). (cid:3)
Definition 4.8.
Given a map ϕ ∶ ∏ i ∈ I h e i → h e I , the specialization of ϕ is the map ˆ ϕ ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n → g γ defined as follows. For ( x n ) n ∈ Γ ∈ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n , define ( y i ) i ∈ I ∈ ∏ i ∈ I h e i by y i ∶ = x p ( e i ) , where p ∶ N → N is as in (4.2), and set(4.20) ˆ ϕ (( x n ) n ∈ Γ ) ∶ = ϕ (( y i ) i ∈ I ) . Theorem 4.9 .
Let d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) be a wall in M R and Γ = { γ i } i ∈ I ∈ mult ( N + ) a multisetof elements in N + such that d ⊂ γ ⊥ , where γ = ∑ i ∈ I γ i . Let Γ e = { e i } i ∈ I ∈ mult ( N + ) , and e ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) a wall in M R such that e ⊂ e ⊥ I and containing the image q ( d ) of d by themap q ∶ M R → M R as in (4.4) . Then, the maps F g , d Γ in (4.1) and F h , e Γ e in (4.7) satisfy (4.21) F g , d Γ = ∏ n ∈ N + m Γ ( n ) ! ˆ F h , e Γ e , where ˆ F h , e Γ e is the specialization of F h , e Γ e as in Defn. 4.8.Proof. By Proposition 4.3, it is enough to show that(4.22) F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ = ∏ n ∈ N + m Γ ( n ) ! ˆ F h , e Γ e . Let ∆ ⊂ Supp ( h ) be the subset of primitive m ∈ Supp ( h ) such that p ( m ) ∈ Z ≥ n ˜ d . As p ( e ) = γ , we have e ∈ ∆. By Proposition 4.4, for primitive m ∈ Supp ( h ) , the hyperplane m ⊥ contains the cone q ( ˜ d ) if and only if m ∈ ∆. Arguing as in the proof of Lemma 4.7, onecan find a h -generic path p ∶ [ , ] → M R with p ( ) ∈ ( q ( ˜ d )) + , p ( ) ∈ ( q ( ˜ d )) − , and such that HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 29 for every m ∈ ∆, the path p intersects the hyperplane m ⊥ at a single point, lying in a wall d m ⊂ m ⊥ which contains the cone q ( ˜ d ) . We can also assume that d e = e .Let ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( h ) → h be a consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram and φ ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) → ˜ g the consistent ( N + , ˜ g ) -scattering diagram φ ρ ∶ Wall
Supp ( ˜ g ) → ˜ g defined by (4.15). As in theproof of Lemma 4.7, for every m, m ′ ∈ ∆, we have [ ρ ( d m ) , ρ ( d m ′ )] = φ ρ that(4.23) φ ρ ( ˜ d ) γ = ∑ m ∈ ∆ , k ∈ Z ≥ p ( km )= γ ν ( ρ ( d m ) km ) . We show below that the equality (4.22) follows from identifying on both sides of (4.23) theterms homogeneous of degree m Γ ( n ) in the initial data I φ ρ ,n .By Proposition 3.11 applied to φ ρ , we have(4.24) φ ρ ( ˜ d ) γ = ∑ Γ ′ ={ γ ′ }∈ mult ( N + ) γ ′ ∈ Supp ( ˜ g ) , ∑ γ ′∈ Γ ′ γ ′ = γ F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ ′ (( I φ ρ ,γ ′ ) γ ′ ∈ Γ ′ ) . The only term homogeneous of degree m Γ ( n ) in the initial data I φ ρ ,n in (4.24) is obtainedfor Γ ′ = Γ and is equal to F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ (( I φ ρ ,n ) n ∈ Γ ) .On the other hand, by Proposition 3.11 applied to ρ , the right-hand side of (4.23) isequal to(4.25) ∑ m ∈ ∆ , k ∈ Z ≥ p ( km )= γ ∑ Γ ′ ={ n ′ }∈ mult (N + ) n ′ ∈ Supp ( h ) , ∑ n ′∈ Γ ′ n ′ = km ν ( F h , d m Γ ′ (( I ρ,n ′ ) n ′ ∈ Γ ′ )) . The only term homogeneous of degree 1 in the initial data I ρ,e i in (4.25) is obtained forΓ ′ = Γ e and is equal to ν ( F h , e Γ e (( I ρ,e i ) ≤ i ≤ r )) .Finally, by Lemma 4.7, we have for every n ∈ Γ,(4.26) I φ ρ ,n = ∑ e i ,p ( e i )= n ν ( I ρ,e i ) . Note that the sum in (4.26) contains m Γ ( n ) terms. Therefore, (4.22) follows from thefollowing algebraic claim applied to ( x i ) i = ( I φ ρ ,n ) n , ( y ij ) ij = ( ν ( I ρ,e i )) i , f = F ˜ g , ˜ d Γ and g = ν ( F h , e Γ e ) : Claim:
Let f (( x i ) ≤ i ≤ s ) be a polynomial function of s variables which is homogeneous ofdegree a i in the variable x i . Write each variable x i as a sum of a i variables y ij : x i = ∑ a i j = y ij ,and let g (( y ij ) ≤ i ≤ r, ≤ j ≤ a i ) be the component of f (( ∑ a i j = y ij ) ≤ i ≤ s ) which is homogeneousof degree 1 in each variable y ij . Finally, let ˆ g (( x i ) ≤ i ≤ s ) be the function obtained from g (( y ij ) ≤ i ≤ s, ≤ j ≤ a i ) by the specialization of variables y ij ↦ x i , for every 1 ≤ i ≤ s and 1 ≤ j ≤ a i .Then, we have(4.27) ˆ g (( x i ) ≤ i ≤ s ) = ( s ∏ i = a i ! ) f (( x i ) ≤ i ≤ s ) . Proof of the claim:
It is enough to prove the result for f = ∏ si = x a i i . For f = ∏ i x a i i , g is the term proportional to ∏ i,j y ij in ∏ i ( ∑ j y ij ) a i . So, g = ( ∏ i a i ! ) ∏ i,j y ij and soˆ g = ( ∏ i a i ! ) ∏ i x a i i = ( ∏ i a i ! ) f . Hence, the result follows. (cid:3) ( N + , h ) -scattering diagrams and flow tree maps. This section includes the tech-nical heart of the paper, Theorem 4.14. The key result of the paper, the flow tree formulain Theorem 4.22, will follow from Theorem 4.14 and Theorem 4.9.4.3.1.
Small enough generic perturbations of the skew-symmetric bilinear form.
In thissection, we define small enough generic perturbations of the skew-symmetric bilinear form η ∈ ⋀ M defined by (4.5). Definition 4.10.
We denote by U η the set of ω ∈ ⋀ M R such that for every n , n ∈ N + e with η ( n , n ) nonzero, ω ( n , n ) is nonzero and has the same sign as η ( n , n ) . We have η ∈ U η and U η is an open neighborhood of η in ⋀ M R .For a fixed ( I, η ) -generic point α ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R as in Defn. 2.14, we call a perturbation ω of η generic if it belongs to the open dense subset U I,α ⊂ ⋀ M R , as in Defn. 2.15, and we saythat the perturbation is small enough if ω belongs to the open neighborhood U η ⊂ ⋀ M R ,as in Defn. 4.10. Hence, ω is a small enough generic perturbation of η ∈ ⋀ M if(4.28) ω ∈ U I,α ∩ U η . Embedding treees in M R via the discrete attractor flow. We fix a ( I, η ) -generic point α ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R as in Defn. 2.14 and ω ∈ U I,α as in Defn. 2.15. In this section we use thediscrete attractor flow defined in § M R asfollows. For every tree T ∈ T I , where T I is defined as in Lemma 2.7, we denote by T ○ thegraph obtained from T by removing all the leaves v ∈ V LT , and extending the resulting openintervals to unbounded edges. For every tree T ∈ T I , we fix a continuous map(4.29) j α,ωT ∶ T ○ Ð→ M R such that:(1) for every vertex v ∈ R T ∪ V ○ T , we have(4.30) j α,ωT ( v ) = θ α,ωT,v . (2) for every bounded edge E of T ○ , connecting vertices v and v ′ , the image of the map j α,ωT restricted to E is the line segment in M R with endpoints θ α,ωT,v and θ α,ωT,v ′ .(3) for every unbounded edge E of T ○ obtained by removing the leaf decorated by e i ,the image of the map j α,ωT restricted to E is the half-line θ α,ωT,v + R ≥ ι e i ω in M R ,where v is the vertex in V ○ T incident to E . HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 31
Remark . For every tree T ∈ T I , the embedded graph j α,ωT ( T ○ ) ⊂ M R in (4.29) definedusing the discrete flow has a natural structure of tropical disks in M R [14, 37, 58] if ω ∈ ⋀ M ⊗ Z Q ⊂ ⋀ M R : edges have then rational weighted directions of the form ι e v ω andthe tropical balancing condition at vertices distinct from the root follows from the relation e v = e v ′ + e v ′′ in Defn. 2.8. Proposition 4.12 .
For every tree T ∈ T ηI and interior vertex v ∈ V ○ T , we have j α,ωT ( v ) ∉ j α,ωT ( p ( v )) , that is, the edge connecting v and p ( v ) is not contracted to a point by j α,ωT .Proof. From the assumption ω ∈ U I,α and Defn. 2.15 of U I,α , we have θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ( e v ′ ) ≠
0, andso θ α,ωT,p ( v ) ≠ θ α,ωT,v by (2.9). (cid:3) Definition 4.13.
We consider the union of all the images of the trees T ○ by the maps j α,ωT for T ∈ T ηI :(4.31) F α,ω ∶ = ⋃ T ∈T ηI j α,ωT ( T ○ ) ⊂ M R . We view F α,ω as a graph embedded in M R . Note that we have α ∈ F , as α is the commonimage by the maps j α,ωT of the roots of the trees T ∈ T ηI .4.3.3. Scattering diagrams via flow tree maps.
Now we are ready to state our main theoremof this section, that allows us to describe scattering diagrams in terms of flow tree maps.This is the technical heart of this paper.
Theorem 4.14 .
Fix a ( I, η ) -generic point α ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R as in Defn. 2.14 and a smallenough generic perturbation ω ∈ U I,α ∩ U η of η as in § J ⊂ I be a nonempty indexset, and x ∈ e ⊥ J a ( J, η ) -generic point such that x ∈ F α,ω and the line segment ( x + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω is not a point. Let σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) be a wall containing x and with normal vector n σ = e J . Then for every consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram φ constructed from initialdata I φ,n that satisfies I φ,n = if n ∉ { e i } i ∈ I , we have (4.32) φ ( σ ) e J = A x,ωJ (( I φ,e i ) i ∈ J ) where φ ( σ ) e J ∈ h e J is the component of φ ( σ ) ∈ h in h e J , and A x,ωJ is the flow tree map withinitial point x as in Defn. 2.23.Proof. The proof is done by induction on the cardinality of the subset J ⊂ I . For theinitial step of the induction, let J be a singleton, that is, J = { i } for some i ∈ J . Then byLemma 2.7, T J consists of a single tree T , with one root and one leg connected by a singleedge. Therefore by item (1) of Defn. 2.21, the map A x,ωJ,T ∶ g e i → g e i is the identity map.Hence, A x,ωJ ( I φ,e i ) = I φ,e i . On the other hand, let σ be a wall with n σ = e i . As e i does notadmit any non-trivial decomposition as a sum of elements of Supp ( h ) ⊂ N + e , it follows fromthe algorithmic construction of scattering diagrams from initial data reviewed in the proof of Proposition 3.11 that φ ( σ ) e i = I φ,e i for every consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram φ .Therefore, we conclude φ ( σ ) e i = A x,ωJ ( I φ,e i ) , and hence the initial step of the induction.For the induction step, let J ⊂ I of cardinality ∣ J ∣ >
1. We assume that Theorem 4.14holds for every J ′ ⊂ I with ∣ J ′ ∣ < ∣ J ∣ . Let σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) be a wall such that n σ = e J andlet x ∈ F α,ω ∩ σ be a ( J, η ) -generic point such that ( x + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω is a non-trivial linesegment.In the remaining part of the section, we show that the statement of the theorem holdsfor J , x , σ in the following four steps:Step I: We define a set of relevant joints J , and show in Lemma 4.15 that if two wallscontained in e ⊥ J intersect along any joint that is not relevant, then the elementsof the Lie algebra h associated to these walls are the same. This enables us topartition the hyperplane e ⊥ J into regions where any wall in a given region has thesame associated element of the Lie algebra, which we denote by φ i − ,i ∈ h e J in (4.34),for i ∈ { , . . . , k } , and φ k, ∞ ∈ h e J in (4.35).Step II: Using the genericity of ω , we prove Lemma 4.16 and we obtain (4.36), expressingthe difference φ i − ,i − φ i,i + in terms of some Lie brackets. On the other hand, usingthat ω is close enough to η , we prove that φ k, ∞ = φ ( σ ) e J . This, together with the fact that φ k, ∞ = Step I : We define the set J of relevant joints : a joint j ∈ S Supp ( h ) , that is, a codimension2 cone of the cone complex S Supp ( h ) is relevant if there exists a subindex set J ′ ⊂ J with j ⊂ e ⊥ J ′ ∩ e ⊥ J and η ( e J ′ , e J ) ≠
0. Note that the point x is not contained in a relevantjoint because of the assumption that x is ( J, η ) -generic. Let 0 = t < t < ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ < t k bean increasing sequence of positive real numbers, such that the intersection points of thehalf-line x + R ≥ ι e J ω with relevant joints j ∈ J correspond to points(4.33) x i = x + t i ι e J ω ⊂ e ⊥ J ⊂ M R , for i ∈ { , . . . , k } , as illustrated in Figures 4.2 and 4.3. Lemma 4.15 .
Let φ be a consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram, such that I φ,n = if n ∉ { e i } i ∈ J . Let σ , σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) such that n σ = n σ = e J . Assume that the joint σ ∩ σ does not belong to J . Then we have φ ( σ ) e J = φ ( σ ) e J .Proof. By consistency of φ applied around the joint σ ∩ σ , the difference φ ( σ ′ ) e J − φ ( σ ) e J is an element of h e J equal to a sum of iterated Lie brackets in the elements φ ( d k ) , where HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 33 σx + R ≥ ι e J ωσ ∞ x i σ i − ,i σ i,i + ι e J ω ι e J ηe ⊥ J x j i Figure 4.2.
Joints in red on the wall e ⊥ J , the perturbation ι e J ω of ι e J η , andthe half line x + R ≥ ι e J ω in blue. xxxi xie ⊥ J e ⊥ J j i e ⊥ J e ⊥ J j i σ i − ,i Figure 4.3.
Walls intersecting along joints in red on the left and the wall σ i − ,i ⊂ e ⊥ J on the right. d k ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) are the walls containing σ ∩ σ . As by assumption σ ∩ σ ∉ J , for everysuch wall d k , we have either n d k = e J ′ for J ′ ⊂ I not contained in J , or n d k = e J ′ with J ′ ⊂ J and η ( e J , e J ′ ) =
0. If J ′ ⊂ I is not contained in J , then [ h e J ′ , h ] ∩ h e J = { } and so in thiscase the wall d k does not contribute non-trivially to the sum of iterated Lie brackets. If J ′ ⊂ J and η ( e J ′ , e J ) =
0, then η ( e J ′ , n ) = [ e J ′ , h n ] = n ∈ N such that e J = e J ′ + n , and so also in this case the wall d k does not contribute to the sum of iteratedLie brackets. We conclude that φ ( σ ) e J − φ ( σ ) e J = (cid:3) By Lemma 4.15, for any i ∈ { , . . . , k } , if σ , σ are two walls with n σ = n σ = e J suchthat σ ∩ ( x + R ≥ ι e J ω ) and σ ∩ ( x + R ≥ ι e J ω ) are non-trivial line segments contained in T Evv ′ v ′′ ( v ′ ) ′′ T e J e J e J T ( v ′ ) ′ Figure 4.4.
A tree ˜ T as in the proof of Lemma 4.16. x + [ t i − , t i ] ι e J ω , then φ ( σ ) e J = φ ( σ ) e J . We denote by(4.34) φ i − ,i ∈ h e J this common value. Note that φ ( σ ) e J = φ , . Similarly, for every walls σ , σ with n σ = n σ = e J such that σ ∩ ( x + R ≥ ι e J ω ) and σ ∩ ( x + R ≥ ι e J ω ) are non-trivial line segmentscontained in x + [ t k , ∞ ) ι e J ω , we have φ ( σ ) e J = φ ( σ ) e J , and we denote by φ k, ∞ ∈ h e J (4.35)this common value. Step II:
In this step, we show that the differences between φ i − ,i and φ i,i + have theform given by (4.36), and we prove that φ k, ∞ = Lemma 4.16 .
Let ω ∈ U I,α as in Defn. 2.15. Let J = J ⊔ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⊔ J s be a partition of J in s subsets such that x i ∈ e ⊥ J ∩ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ∩ e ⊥ J s . Then, we have s ≤ .Proof. If s ≥
3, then writing J ′ = J , J ′ = J and J ′ = ⋃ sk = J k , we have J = J ′ ⊔ J ′ ⊔ J ′ and x i ∈ e ⊥ J ′ ∩ e ⊥ J ′ ∩ e ⊥ J ′ . Thus, it is enough to prove that the case s = J = J ⊔ J ⊔ J such that x i ∈ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J . As we are assuming that ( x + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω is a non-trivial line segment,there exists a tree T ∈ T ηI and an edge E of T such that, denoting by v the vertex of T incident to E on the path from E to the leaves, x is in the interior of j α,ωT ( E ) and thecharge e v as in Defn. 2.8 is given by e v = e J .We choose a tree T ∈ T J ⊔ J such that, denoting by v the child of the root of T , wehave e v ′ = e J and e v ′′ = e J . We also choose a tree T ∈ T J . We construct a new tree˜ T ∈ T ηI from T , T and T as follows (see Figure 4.4). First, let T be the tree obtained byremoving from T all the edges and vertices descendant from v , so that v becomes a leaf of T . Then, we obtain ˜ T by gluing the three trees T , T , and T : we identify the leaf v of T with the roots of T and T . We still denote by v the vertex of ˜ T where T , T and T areglued together, and by E the edge of ˜ T incident to v on the path from v to the root. Wehave e v = e J , and we label v ′ and v ′′ the children of v so that e v ′ = e J + e J , e v ′′ = e J , and ( v ′ ) ′ and ( v ′ ) ′′ the children of v ′ so that e ( v ′ ) ′ = e J and e ( v ′ ) ′′ = e J . HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 35
By (4.30), we have j ˜ T ( v ) = θ α,ω ˜ T ,v and it follows from Lemma 2.12 that j ˜ T ( v ) ∈ ( e J + e J ) ⊥ ∩ e ⊥ J . As we also have j ˜ T ( E ) ⊂ x + R ι e J ω , we deduce that j ˜ T ( v ) is the intersectionpoint of the line x + R ι e J with ( e J + e J ) ⊥ ∩ e ⊥ J and so j ˜ T ( v ) = x i . As we are assuming x i ∈ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J , we have in particular θ α,ω ˜ T ,v ( e J ) =
0, so θ α,ω ˜ T ,v ( e ( v ′ ) ′ ) =
0, in contradictionwith our assumption that ω ∈ U I,α and Defn. 2.15 of U I,α . (cid:3) For every i ∈ { , . . . , k } , we pick a relevant joint j i ∈ J containing the point x i . Byconsistency of φ around the joint j i , the difference φ i − ,i − φ i,i + can be written in terms ofthe walls containing j i as a sum of iterated Lie brackets. By Lemma 4.16, φ i − ,i − φ i,i + onlyreceives contributions from two-terms decompositions e J = e J + e J . Denote by P j i the setof { J , J } with J , J ⊂ J , J = J ⊔ J , j i ⊂ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J , and η ( e J , e J ) ≠
0. Then, we have(4.36) φ i − ,i − φ i,i + = ∑ { J ,J }∈ P j i g j i J ,J where g j i J ,J is a scalar multiple of a Lie bracket produced by the walls contained in thehyperplanes e ⊥ J and e ⊥ J and intersecting along the joint j i . It follows from Lemma 4.16that one can compute each term g j i J,J ′ as if the only walls intersecting along the joint j i werecontained in the hyperplanes e ⊥ J , e ⊥ J and e ⊥ J . The precise form of g j i J ,J is given in Lemma4.18 below. Proposition 4.17 .
For ω ∈ U η , we have φ k, ∞ = .Proof. As the set of walls Wall
Supp ( h ) is finite, there exists a wall σ ∞ ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) such that n σ ∞ = e J and x + tι e J ω ⊂ σ ∞ for t large enough, as illustrated in Figures 4.2. As σ ∞ is a conein M R , this last condition is only possible if ι e J ω ∈ σ ∞ . As Supp ( h ) ⊂ N + e , it follows fromthe assumption ω ∈ U η and from the Defn. 4.10 of U η that ι e J η ∈ σ ∞ : indeed the conditionthat ω ( e J , n ) has the same sign as η ( e J , n ) for all n ∈ N + e exactly means that there are nohyperplane n ⊥ with n ∈ N + e and separating the points ι e J ω and ι e J ω . Therefore, we haveby Proposition 3.9 that φ ( σ ∞ ) e J = I φ,e J . But we are assuming that I φ,n = n ∉ { e i } i ∈ I and ∣ J ∣ >
1, so I φ,e J =
0. We conclude that φ k, ∞ = φ ( σ ∞ ) e J = (cid:3) Step III:
In this step, we apply the consistency condition for φ around the joint j i through the point x i = x + t i ι e J ω to compute the quantities g j i J ,J appearing in (4.36).We denote by σ i − ,i (resp. σ i,i + ) the wall containing j i such that n σ i − ,i = e J and σ i − ,i ⊂ j i − R ≥ ι e J ω (resp. σ i,i + ⊂ j i + R ≥ ι e J ω ), as illustrated in Figures 4.2 and 4.3. We have φ ( σ i − ,i ) = φ i − ,i and φ ( σ i,i + ) = φ i,i + .Let { J , J } ∈ P j i . We denote by d in , d in , d out and d out the walls containing j i such that n d in = n d out = e J , n d in = n d out = e J ,(4.37) d in ⊂ j i + R ≥ ι e J ω , d in ⊂ j i + R ≥ ι e J ω (4.38) d out ⊂ j i − R ≥ ι e J ω , d out ⊂ j i − R ≥ ι e J ω . σ i,i + σ i − ,i j i p ( ) ι e J ω ι e J ωǫ − ǫ − ǫ − ǫǫ d in d out d out d in ǫ ι e J ω Figure 4.5.
Consistency around the joint j i .By Lemma 4.16, there are no non-trivial decomposition e J = ∑ sj = n j with n j ∈ N + e and j i ⊂ ∩ sj = n ⊥ j , and so it follows from the consistency of φ around j i that φ ( d out ) e J = φ ( d in ) e J .Similarly, we have φ ( d out ) e J = φ ( d in ) e J . Lemma 4.18 .
Let p ∶ [ , ] → M R be a h -generic oriented loop around j i intersectingsuccessively d in , σ i,i + , d in , d out , σ i − ,i , d out (see Figure 4.5). Then, we have (4.39) g j i J ,J = − sgn ( ω ( n , n ))[ φ ( d in ) e J , φ ( d in ) e J ] . Proof.
Denote by ǫ (resp. ǫ and ǫ ) the sign of the derivative of t ↦ − p ( t )( e J ) (resp. − p ( t )( e J ) and − p ( t )( e J ) ) at the intersection point of p with d in (resp. d in and σ i,i + ).According to (3.5), we have(4.40) Ψ p ,φ = e − ǫ φ ( d in ) eJ e − ǫφ i − ,i e − ǫ φ ( d in ) eJ e ǫ φ ( d in ) eJ e ǫφ i,i + e ǫ φ ( d in ) eJ . Therefore, the consistency of φ around j i implies(4.41) ǫ ( φ i,i + − φ i − ,i ) + ǫ ǫ [ φ ( d in ) e J , φ ( d in ) e J ] = g j i J ,J = ǫǫ ǫ [ φ ( d in ) e J , φ ( d in ) e J ] . We show − sgn ( ω ( n , n )) = ǫǫ ǫ in the remaining part of the proof. We work in the planetransverse to j i spanned by ι e J ω , ι e J ω , and we view ( e J , e J ) as coordinates on this plane.Up to smoothly deforming p , one can assume that p intersects p in (resp. σ i,i + and d in ) at HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 37
E TE ′′ v ′′ vE ′ T v ′ e J e J T Figure 4.6.
A tree ˜ T as in the proof of Lemma 4.19.the point j i + ι e J ω (resp. j i + ι e J ω and j i + ι e J ω ), which has coordinates ( − ω ( e J , e J ) , ) (resp. ( − ω ( e J , e J ) , ω ( e J , e J )) and ( , ω ( e J , e J )) ).By definition, ǫ is minus the sign of variation of the coordinate e J when p crosses d in .When p goes from j i + ι e J ω to j i + ι e J ω , the variation of the coordinate e J is ω ( e J , e J ) ,and so ǫ = − sgn ( ω ( e J , e J )) . Similarly, one checks that ǫ = − sgn ( ω ( e J , e J )) and ǫ = − sgn ( ω ( e J , e J )) . (cid:3) Lemma 4.19 .
We can apply the induction hypothesis to J , d in , x i and J , d in , x i . Hence, φ ( d in ) = A x i ,ωJ (( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) , (4.43) φ ( d in ) = A x i ,ωJ (( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) . (4.44) Proof.
To show we can apply the induction hypothesis to J , d in , x i and J , d in , x i , we needto show that:(i) the point x i is ( J , η ) -generic and ( J , η ) -generic,(ii) the intersections ( x i + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω and ( x i + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω are non-trivial linesegments.To prove (i), first note that x i ∈ j i ⊂ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J . If there were J ′ ⊊ J such that x i ∈ e ⊥ J ′ ,then, writing J = J ′ ⊔ J ′′ , one would have e J = e J ′ + e J ′′ + e J and x i ∈ e ⊥ J ′ ∩ e ⊥ J ′′ ∩ e ⊥ J , incontradiction with Lemma 4.16. Therefore, x i is ( J , η ) -generic. Exchanging the roles of J and J , this also proves that x i is ( J , η ) -generic.To prove (ii), we follow the same logic as in the proof of Lemma 4.16. As we are assumingthat x + R ι e J ω ⊂ F is a non-trivial line segment, there exists a tree T ∈ T ηI and an edge E of T such that, denoting by v the vertex of T incident to E on the path from E to theleaves, x is in the interior of j α,ωT ( E ) and e v = e J .We choose trees T ∈ T J and T ∈ T J . We construct a new tree ˜ T ∈ T ηI from T , T and T as follows (see Figure 4.6). First, let T be the tree obtained by removing from T allthe edges and vertices descendant from v , so that v becomes a leaf of T . Then, we obtain˜ T by gluing the three trees T , T , and T : we identify the leaf v of T with the roots of T and T . We still denote by v the vertex of ˜ T where T , T and T are glued togetherand by E the edge of ˜ T incident to v on the path from v to the root. We have e v = e J and we label v ′ and v ′′ the children of v so that e v ′ = e J and e v ′′ = e J . Let E ′ (resp. E ′′ )be the edge of ˜ T connecting v to v ′ (resp. v ′′ ). We have j ˜ T ( e v ) = θ α,ω ˜ T ,v , and so by Lemma2.12, j ˜ T ( e v ) ∈ e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J . As we also have j ˜ T ( E ) ⊂ x + R ι e J ω , we deduce that j ˜ T ( v ) = x i .We conclude that j ˜ T ( E ′ ) ⊂ ( x i + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω and j ˜ T ( E ′′ ) ⊂ ( x i + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F α,ω . ByProposition 4.12, j ˜ T ( E ′ ) and j ˜ T ( E ′′ ) are non-trivial line segments and and hence the proofof (ii) follows. (cid:3) Thus, we can rewrite Lemma 4.18 as(4.45) g j i J ,J = − sgn ( ω ( e J , e J ))[ A x i ,ωJ , A x i ,ωJ ](( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) . By Defn. 2.23 of the flow tree maps as sum over trees, this can be rewritten as(4.46) g j i J ,J = − ∑ T ∈T ηJ ∑ T ∈T ηJ sgn ( ω ( e J , e J ))[ A x i ,ωJ ,T , A x i ,ωJ ,T ](( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) . Step IV:
As a final step, we show that(4.47) φ ( σ ) e J = φ k, ∞ + A x,ωJ (( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) . To prove (4.47), first observe that summing the equations (4.36) side by side for allvalues i ∈ { , . . . , k } we obtain φ ( σ ) e J = φ k, ∞ + ∑ ki = ∑ { J ,J }∈ P j i g j i J ,J . Then, using (4.46),we get(4.48) φ ( σ ) e J = φ k, ∞ − k ∑ i = ∑ { J ,J }∈ P j i ∑ T ∈T ηJ ∑ T ∈T ηJ sgn ( ω ( e J , e J ))[ A x i ,ωJ ,T , A x i ,ωJ ,T ](( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) . On the other hand, we have A x,ωJ = ∑ T ∈T ηJ A x,ωJ,T by Defn. 2.23, and so, using Defn. 2.21:(4.49) ∑ T ∈T ηJ A x,ωJ,T = − ∑ T ∈T ηJ sgn ( x ( e v ′ T )) + sgn ( ω ( e v ′ T , e v ′′ T )) [ A x,ωJ,T,v ′ T , A x,ωJ,T,v ′′ T ] , where v T is the child of the root of the tree T , and v ′ T , v ′′ T are the children of v T .Comparing (4.48) and (4.49), it remains to show that k ∑ i = ∑ { J ,J }∈ P j i ∑ T ∈T ηJ ∑ T ∈T ηJ sgn ( ω ( e J , e J ))[ A x i ,ωJ ,T , A x i ,ωJ ,T ] (4.50) = ∑ T ∈T ηJ sgn ( x ( e v ′ T )) + sgn ( ω ( e v ′ T , e v ′′ T )) [ A x,ωJ,T,v ′ T , A x,ωJ,T,v ′′ T ] . (4.51)Given T ∈ T ηJ and writing J = J T,v ′ T and J = J T,v ′′ T , we obtain a tree T ∈ T J (resp. T ∈ T J ) by considering the subtree of T made of v T and its descendant through the child v ′ T (resp. v ′′ T ) (see Figure 4.7). If the contribution of T in (4.51) is nonzero, we have infact T ∈ T ηJ and T ∈ T ηJ . We claim that x ( e J ) and ω ( e J , e J ) are of the same sign if and HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 39 TT T e J e J Figure 4.7.
Trees T , T and T .only if the intersection point of the line x + R ι e J ω with e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J is contained in the half-line x + R ≥ ι e J ω . Indeed, the intersection point of the line x + R ι e J ω with e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J is the point(4.52) x − x ( e J ) ω ( e J , e J ) ι e J ω . Thus, if sgn ( x ( e J )) + sgn ( ω ( e J , e J )) ≠
0, the intersection point of the line x + R ι e J ω with e ⊥ J ∩ e ⊥ J is equal x i for some 1 ≤ i ≤ k such that { J , J } ∈ j i , and we have(4.53) x i = x − x ( e J ) ω ( e J , e J ) ι e J ω = θ x,ωT,v . Then, it follows from Defn. 2.21 and 2.23 that A x i ,ωJ ,T = A x,ωJ,T,v ′ T and A x i ,ωJ ,T = A x,ωJ,T,v ′′ T . Con-versely, for every 1 ≤ i ≤ k and { J , J } ∈ P j i , every T ∈ T ηJ and T ∈ T ηJ are obtained inthis way. Hence, (4.47) follows.From (4.47) together with Proposition 4.17, we obtain φ ( σ ) e J = A x,ωJ (( I φ,e j ) j ∈ J ) and soTheorem 4.14 holds for J , σ and x . Hence, this concludes our proof of Theorem 4.14. (cid:3) The flow tree formula for scattering diagrams.Definition 4.20.
A point τ ∈ γ ⊥ ⊂ M R is γ -generic if for every γ ′ ∈ N , θ ( γ ′ ) = γ ′ is collinear with γ . Lemma 4.21 .
Let τ ∈ γ ⊥ ⊂ M R be a γ -generic point as in Defn. 4.20. Then, the image α ∶ = q ( τ ) ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R of τ by the map q ∶ M R → M R given by (4.4) is ( I, η ) -generic as inDefn. 2.14.Proof. Assume by contradiction that α is not ( I, η ) -generic, which means by Defn. 2.14that there exists a tree T ∈ T ηI such that α ( e v ′ ) =
0, where v is the child of the root of T .Thus, we have τ ( p ( e v ′ )) =
0, that is, τ ∈ p ( e v ′ ) ⊥ , and so the condition that τ is γ -genericimplies by Defn. 4.20 that p ( e v ′ ) is collinear with γ = p ( e I ) . Recalling that e v = e I , thisimplies that η ( e v ′ , e v ) = η ( e v ′ , e I ) = ⟨ p ( e v ′ ) , p ( e I )⟩ =
0, in contradiction with the assumptionthat T ∈ T ηI and the Defn. 2.13 of T ηI . (cid:3) Let τ ∈ γ ⊥ be a γ -generic point as in Defn. 4.20. By Lemma 4.21, the point α ∶ = q ( τ ) ∈ e ⊥ I is ( I, η ) -generic. Therefore, by Proposition 2.18 the set U I,α of ( I, α ) -generic skew-symmetricbilinear form is open and dense in ⋀ M R , and for every ω ∈ U I,α the flow tree map A α,ωI ∶ ∏ i ∈ I h e i → h e is defined by Defn. 2.23.Finally, we arrive at our main theorem of this section, the flow tree formula for scatteringdiagrams I: Theorem 4.22 .
Let d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) be a wall in M R and Γ = { γ i } i ∈ I ∈ mult ( N + ) a multisetof elements of N + such that d ⊂ γ ⊥ , where γ = ∑ i ∈ I γ i . Let τ ∈ d be a γ -generic point and α ∶ = q ( τ ) ∈ M R the image of τ by the map q ∶ M R → M R as in (4.4) . For every smallenough generic perturbation ω ∈ U I,α ∩ U η of η as in 4.3.1, the map F g , d Γ in (3.14) is givenby the “flow tree formula for scattering diagrams I”: (4.54) F g , d Γ = ∏ n ∈ N + m Γ ( n ) ! ˆ A α,ωI . where ˆ A α,ωI is as in Defn. 4.8 the specialization of the flow tree map A α,ωI defined in Defn.2.23.Proof. Let e ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) be a wall in M R containing q ( d ) such that e ⊂ e ⊥ I . In particular,we have α ∈ e . By Theorem 4.9, we have(4.55) F g , d Γ = ∏ n ∈ N + m Γ ( n ) ! ˆ F h , e Γ e . On the other hand, as α is ( I, η ) -generic by Lemma 4.21, we can apply Theorem 4.14 for J = I , σ = e , x = α , and we obtain(4.56) F h , e Γ e = A α,ωI . The result follows from (4.55) and (4.56). (cid:3)
We provide also a variant of the flow tree formula for scattering diagrams, the flow treeformula for scattering diagrams II, which involves perturbing the points in M R rather thanthe skew-symmetric bilinear form, as in Theorem 4.22.Note that from Proposition 2.20 that the set V I,η of β ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R such that β is ( I, η ) -generic and η is β -generic is open and dense in e ⊥ I . For every β ∈ V I,η , we define the flowtree maps A β,ηI ∶ ∏ i ∈ I h e i → h e as in Defn. 2.23 and its specialization ˆ A β,ηI ∶ ∏ n ∈ Γ g n → g γ asin Defn. 4.8. For every β ∈ V I,η , we define F β,η as F α,ω in 4.31 and replacing α with β ,and ω with η . We also define V α ⊂ e ⊥ I as the set of β ∈ e ⊥ I such that there exists a wall e ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) with e ⊂ e ⊥ I which contains both α and β . We have α ∈ V α and V α is anopen neighborhood of α in e ⊥ I . We say that β is a small enough generic perturbation of α in e ⊥ I if(4.57) β ∈ V I,α ∩ V α . HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 41
Theorem 4.23 .
Fix a ( I, η ) -generic point α ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R as in Defn. 2.14 and a smallenough generic perturbation β ∈ V I,α ∩ V α of α in e ⊥ I . Let J ⊂ I be a nonempty index set,and x ∈ e ⊥ J a ( J, η ) -generic point such that x ∈ F β,η and the line segment ( x + R ι e J ω ) ∩ F β,η is not a point. Let σ ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) be a wall containing x and with normal vector n σ = e J .Then for every consistent ( N + , h ) -scattering diagram φ such that I φ,n = if n ∉ { e i } i ∈ I , wehave (4.58) φ ( σ ) e J = A x,ηJ (( I φ,e i ) i ∈ J ) Proof.
The proof is analogous to the proof of Theorem 4.14, with α , ω replaced respectivelyby β , η , and with an extra simplification in Proposition 4.17: for t positive large enough, x + tι e J η is contained in a wall σ ∞ , which thus necessarily contains ι e J η and so φ k, ∞ = (cid:3) Theorem 4.24 .
Let d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) be a wall in M R and Γ = { γ i } i ∈ I ∈ mult ( N + ) a multisetof elements of N + such that d ⊂ γ ⊥ , where γ = ∑ i ∈ I γ i . Let τ ∈ d be a γ -generic point and α ∶ = q ( τ ) ∈ M R the image of τ by the map q ∶ M R → M R as in (4.4) . For every smallenough generic perturbation β ∈ V I,α ∩ V α of α in e ⊥ I , the universal map F g , d Γ in (3.14) isgiven by by the “flow tree formula for scattering diagrams II”: (4.59) F g , d Γ = ∏ n ∈ N + m Γ ( n ) ! ˆ A β,ηI . Proof.
Let e ∈ Wall
Supp ( h ) be a wall in M R such that e ⊂ e ⊥ I and containing both q ( d ) and β . By Theorem 4.9, we have(4.60) F g , d Γ = ∏ n ∈ N + m Γ ( n ) ! ˆ F h , e Γ e . On the other hand, as α is ( I, η ) -generic by Lemma 4.21, we can apply Theorem 4.23 for J = I , σ = e , x = β , and we obtain(4.61) F h , e Γ e = A β,ηI . The result follows from (4.60) and (4.61). (cid:3)
Remark . We compare briefly the passage from scattering diagrams in N to scatteringdiagrams in N and the perturbation of scattering diagrams introduced in [37]. Usingour notations, the perturbation of [37] consists in replacing the hyperplanes γ ⊥ i = { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( γ i ) = } by the affine hyperplanes { θ ∈ M R ∣ θ ( γ i ) = ǫ i } where ǫ i ∈ R are genericperturbation parameters. On the other hand, denoting by K the kernel of p ∶ N → N , weobtain by duality a surjective map π ∶ M R → K ∨ R , where K ∨ R ∶ = Hom ( K, R ) . We claim thatour scattering diagram in M R is a universal family of perturbed scattering diagrams in thesense of [37]. Indeed, fixing ǫ ∈ K ∨ R is equivalent to fixing the perturbation parameters ǫ i of [37], and the intersections of our scattering diagram in M R with the fibers π − ( ǫ ) areessentially the perturbed scattering diagrams of [37]. The embedded trees j β,ηT ( T ○ ) used in the proof of Theorem 4.24 are all contained in thefiber π − ( π ( β )) of π . Indeed, all edges have directions of the form ι e v η , and so for every k ∈ K , we have ι e v η ( k ) = η ( e v , k ) = η is the pullback of ⟨ − , − ⟩ by p . Therefore,these embedded trees viewed inside π − ( π ( β )) essentially coincide with the tropical curvescontained in the perturbed scattering diagrams considered in [37] (see also [17, 49]).By contrast, the embedded trees j α,ωT ( T ○ ) used in the proof of Theorem 4.22 are notcontained in a given fiber of π in general: one cannot use the perturbed scattering diagramsin the sense of [37] and it is essential to work with scattering diagrams in M R .5. The flow tree formula for DT invariants In § § § § Quivers with potentials. A quiver Q is a finite oriented graph. A potential W ∈ C Q for Q is a finite linear combination of oriented cycles of Q in the path algebra C Q of Q .We denote by Q the set of vertices of Q , and set N ∶ = Z Q , with dual M R ∶ = Hom ( N, R ) ,and(5.1) N + ∶ = N Q /{ } ⊂ N .
Definition 5.1. A representation E of Q is a finite-dimensional left-module over the pathalgebra C Q , that is, the data of a finite-dimensional C -vector space E i for each vertex i ∈ Q and of a linear map f α ∶ E i → E j for every arrow α ∶ i → j in Q . Every nonzerorepresentation of Q has a dimension vector ( dim E i ) i ∈ Q ∈ N + . Definition 5.2.
Given γ ∈ N + and a stability parameter θ ∈ γ ⊥ = { θ ′ ∈ M R ∣ θ ′ ( γ ) = } ,a representation E of Q of dimension vector γ is θ - semistable (resp. θ - stable ) if for everystrict subrepresentation F ⊊ E , we have θ ( F ) ≤ θ ( F ) < M θ − stγ parametrizingisomorphism classes of θ -stable representations of Q of dimension vector γ , and a generallysingular quasiprojective variety M θγ parametrizing S-equivalence classes of θ -semistablerepresentations of Q of dimension vector γ . A potential W ∈ C Q defines regular functionsTr ( W ) θγ on the moduli spaces M θγ as follows: Given a representation E = ( E i , f α ) i,α ∈ M θγ and an a oriented cycle c = α r . . . α in Q starting and ending at the vertex i ∈ Q , thecomposition(5.2) f c ∶ = f α r ○ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ○ f α HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 43 of the linear maps f α i along the arrows of the cycle is an endomorphism of E i , and wedefine the evaluation of the function Tr ( c ) θγ on E as being the trace of this endomorphism.More generally, W is a linear combination ∑ k a k c k of oriented cycles c k and we defineTr ( W ) θγ by linearity, that is, Tr ( W ) θγ ∶ = ∑ k a k Tr ( c k ) θγ .5.2. DT invariants of quivers with potentials and flow trees.
Let ( Q, W ) be aquiver with potential, γ ∈ N + a dimension vector and θ ∈ γ ⊥ ⊂ M R a stability parameter.We assume that θ is γ -generic in the sense that θ ( γ ′ ) = γ ′ collinear with γ . Then,the (refined) Donaldson-Thomas invariant of ( Q, W ) for the dimension vector γ and thestability parameter θ is a Laurent polynomial(5.3) Ω θγ ( y, t ) ∈ Z [ y ± , t ± ] in two variables y and t , and with integer coefficients. In the ideal case where M θγ issmooth and the critical locus of Tr ( W ) θγ is non-degenerate, Ω θγ ( y, t ) coincides with the(signed symmetrized) Hodge polynomial of the critical locus of Tr ( W ) θγ . In general, thesingularities of M θγ and the degeneracy of the critical locus require respectively the use ofthe theory of perverse sheaves [10] and of the theory of vanishing cycles [22]. We will ina moment review the definition of Ω θγ ( y, t ) following the approach of [20, 54] and referringto [20] for technical details.We define the DT sheaf DT θγ on M θγ by(5.4) DT θγ = ⎧⎪⎪⎨⎪⎪⎩ φ Tr ( W ) θγ ( IC M θγ ) if M θ − stγ ≠ ∅ , where IC M θd denotes the intersection cohomology sheaf on M θγ and φ Tr ( W ) θγ is the vanishingcycle functor defined by the function(5.5) Tr ( W ) θγ ∶ M θγ → C . The cohomological DT invariant DT θγ is then defined as the cohomology of the DT sheaf:(5.6) DT θγ ∶ = H ∗ ( M θγ , DT θγ ) . By Saito’s theory of mixed Hodge modules [62], the graded vector space DT θγ is natu-rally endowed with a (monodromic) mixed Hodge structure, and so in particular with anincreasing weight filtration W and a decreasing Hodge filtration F . The Hodge-Delignenumbers of DT θγ are(5.7) h p,q ∶ = ∑ i ∈ Z ( − ) i dim Gr p F Gr W p + q H i ( M θγ , DT θγ ) , where Gr ∗ F and Gr W ∗ are the graded pieces of the filtrations F and W . The (refined) DTinvariant Ω θγ ( y, t ) is by definition a Laurent polynomial with coefficients the Hodge-Deligne numbers of DT θγ :(5.8) Ω θγ ( y, t ) ∶ = ∑ p,q h p,q y p + q t p − q ∈ Z [ y ± , t ± ] . The flow tree formula is more naturally formulated in terms of the rational DT invariantsΩ θγ ( y, t ) ∈ Q ( y, t ) defined by(5.9) Ω θγ ( y, t ) ∶ = ∑ γ ′ ∈ N + γ = kγ ′ , k ∈ Z ≥ k y − y − y k − y − k Ω θγ ′ ( y k , t k ) . It is proved in [20] that the dependence on θ of the invariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) is given by thewall-crossing formula of Joyce-Song and Kontsevich-Soibelman, and that the invariantsΩ θγ ( y, t ) coincide with those previously defined in [40, 45] using the motivic Hall algebra.5.3. Attractor invariants and the flow tree formula.
In this section we state ourmain result, the flow tree formula in Theorem 5.5, which expresses the DT invariants interms of a smaller subset of invariants, referred to as attractor invariants and defined asfollows.Let ⟨ − , − ⟩ ∶ N × N → Z be the skew-symmetric bilinear form defined by(5.10) ⟨ γ, γ ′ ⟩ ∶ = ∑ i,j ∈ Q ( a ij − a ji ) γ i γ ′ j , where a ij is the number of arrows in Q from the vertex i to the vertex j . Definition 5.3.
For every γ ∈ N + , the rational attractor invariant Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) is defined by(5.11) Ω ∗ γ ( y, t ) ∶ = Ω θ γ γ ( y, t ) , where Ω θ γ γ ( y, t ) is as in (5.9), and θ γ is a small γ -generic perturbation of the attractor point ⟨ γ, − ⟩ ∈ M R . Remark . The definition 5.3 of rational attractor invariants is independent of the choiceof the small γ -generic perturbation (see [57, Theorem 3.1]): indeed, if there is a wall ofmarginal stability associated to a decomposition γ = γ ′ + γ ′ passing through the attractorpoint ⟨ γ, − ⟩ , then ⟨ γ, γ ′ ⟩ = θγ ( y, t ) does not jump through this wall according to thewall-crossing formula. Replacing Ω θ γ γ ( y, t ) in Defn. 5.3 by Ω θ γ γ ( y, t ) in (5.8), we obatin thedefinition of an attractor invariants , which are related to rational attractor invariants viathe formula (5.9). In what follows, we often make use of the rational attractor invariants,which suit better to wall-crossing computations.By iteration of the wall-crossing formula, the DT invariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) for any γ -genericstability parameter θ ∈ γ ⊥ can be expressed in terms of the attractor invariants Ω ∗ γ by a HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 45 formula of the form(5.12) Ω θγ ( y, t ) = ∑ r ≥ ∑ { γ i } ≤ i ≤ r ∑ ri = γ i = γ ∣ Aut ({ γ i } i )∣ F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) r ∏ i = Ω ∗ γ i ( y, t ) , where the second sum is over the multisets { γ i } ≤ i ≤ r with γ i ∈ N and ∑ ri = γ i = γ . Here, thedenominator ∣ Aut ({ γ i } i )∣ is the order of the symmetry group of { γ i } : if m γ ′ is the numberof times that γ ′ ∈ N appears in { γ i } i , then ∣ Aut ({ γ i } i )∣ = ∏ γ ′ ∈ N m γ ′ !. The coefficients F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) are universal in the sense that they depend on ( Q, W ) only through theskew-symmetric form ⟨ − , − ⟩ on N . The flow tree formula gives an explicit formula forcoefficients F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) as a sum over binary trees. We state the flow tree formula inTheorem 5.5 after introducing some notation.Let γ , . . . , γ r ∈ N such that ∑ ri = γ i = γ . As in (4.2)-(4.4), we set I ∶ = { , . . . , r } andwe introduce a rank r free abelian group N = ⊕ i ∈ I Z e i , along with the map p ∶ N → N as in (4.2) and the map q ∶ M R → M R = Hom ( N , R ) defined as in (4.4). We also define askew-symmetric bilinear form η ∈ ⋀ M on N by η ( e i , e j ) ∶ = ⟨ γ i , γ j ⟩ , and consider the image α of the stability parameter θ by q :(5.13) α ∶ = q ( θ ) ∈ M R . By Lemma 4.21 the assumption that θ is γ -generic implies that α is ( I, η ) -generic and sowe can consider a small enough generic perturbation ω ∈ U I,α ∩ U η of η as in Defn. 2.15and Defn. 4.10.In the following theorem we state our main result, the flow tree formula , which pro-vides an explicit description for the universal coefficient F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) that appears in theformula (1.7) expressing the DT invariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) in terms of the attractor invariantsΩ ∗ γ i ( y, t ) . Theorem 5.5 .
For every small enough generic perturbation ω ∈ U I,α ∩ U η ⊂ ⋀ M R of η ∈ ⋀ M R , the universal coefficients F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) in (1.7) are given by the flow treeformula : (5.14) F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) = ∑ T ∈T ηr ∏ v ∈ V ○ T ǫ α,ωT,v κ ( η ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) , where the sum is over binary trees as in § ǫ α,ωT,v ∈ { , , − } is as in (2.23) and (5.15) κ ( x ) ∶ = ( − ) x ⋅ y x − y − x y − y − for every x ∈ Z . The flow tree formula stated in Theorem 5.5 was conjectured by Alexandrov and Piolinein [2]. The assumption ω ∈ U I,α ∩ U η in Theorem 5.5 makes precise and explicit theconditions “small enough” and “generic” which were left slightly vague in the original formulation of the conjecture in [2]: ω ∈ U η is the condition “small enough”, and ω ∈ U I,α is the condition “generic”.We also prove a variant of the flow tree formula recently conjectured by Mozgovoy [56]in which one perturbs points in M R rather than the skew-symmetric form. Recall thatwe denote e I ∶ = ∑ i ∈ I e i . By Proposition 2.20, the set V I,η of β ∈ e ⊥ I ⊂ M R such that β is ( I, η ) -generic and η is β -generic is open and dense in e ⊥ I . Finally, we denote by V α theopen neighborhood of α in e ⊥ I defined by: β ∈ V α if and only if for every n ∈ N + e such that α ( n ) is nonzero, β ( n ) is nonzero and of the same sign as α ( n ) . Theorem 5.6 .
For every small enough generic perturbation β ∈ V I,η ∩ V α of α in e ⊥ I , theuniversal coefficient F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) which appears in the formula (1.7) expressing the DTinvariants Ω θγ ( y, t ) in terms of the attractor invariants Ω ∗ γ i ( y, t ) is given by: (5.16) F θr ( γ , . . . , γ r ) = ∑ T ∈T ηr ∏ v ∈ V ○ T ǫ β,ηT,v κ ( η ( e v ′ , e v ′′ )) , where the sum is over binary trees as in § ǫ α,ωT,v is as in (1.11) and κ is as in (5.15) . In Theorem 5.6, the assumption β ∈ V I,η ∩ V α makes precise and explicit the expres-sion “small enough generic perturbation” used in the statement of Theorem 1.2 given inthe introduction: β ∈ V α is the condition “small enough”, and β ∈ V I,η is the condition“generic”.5.4.
Proofs of Theorems 5.5 and 5.6.
We derive the proof of the flow tree formula inTheorem 5.5 (and of its variant in Theorem 5.6), from the flow tree formula for scatteringdiagrams in Theorem 4.22 (and from its variant in Theorem 4.24 respectively). We dothis by applying the latter formulas to the stability scattering diagram, which is a ( N + , g ) -scattering diagram as in Defn. 3.2, introduced by Bridgeland. We roughly review itsdescription here, and for details refer to [13].Let ( Q, W ) be a quiver with potential, and γ ∈ N + be a dimension vector. Define a N + -graded Lie algebra over Q ( y, t ) by(5.17) ˜ g ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + Q ( y, t ) z n , where the Lie bracket [ − , − ] is given by(5.18) [ z n , z n ] ∶ = κ (⟨ n , n ⟩) z n + n . where κ is as in (5.15). Let δ ∶ N → Z be an additive map such that δ ( N + ) ⊂ Z ≥ . Then(5.19) ˜ g > n ( γ ) ∶ = ⊕ n ∈ N + δ ( n )> δ ( γ ) Q ( y, t ) z n is a Lie ideal of ˜ g and we consider the quotient Lie algebra(5.20) g ∶ = ˜ g / ˜ g > δ ( γ ) , HE FLOW TREE FORMULA 47 which is finitely N + -graded. The support of g is Supp ( g ) = { n ∈ N + ∣ δ ( n ) ≤ δ ( γ )} .For every wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) , pick a point x d ∈ d such that x d ∉ d ′ for all d ′ ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) distinct from d . The stability scattering diagram (5.21) φ ∶ Wall
Supp ( g ) Ð→ g is defined by(5.22) φ ( d ) ∶ = ∑ k ≥ δ ( kn d )≤ δ ( γ ) Ω x d kn d ( y, t ) z kn d , for every wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) , where Ω x d kn d ( y, t ) are rational DT invariants defined as in(5.9). The definition of φ is in fact independent of the choices of the points x d : by thewall-crossing formula, the DT invariants Ω θn ( y, t ) with δ ( n ) ≤ δ ( γ ) do not jump as longas θ stays in the interior of a wall d ∈ Wall
Supp ( g ) . The following key theorem is due toBridgeland [13, Thm 1.1]: Theorem 5.7 (Bridgeland, 2016).
The stability scattering diagram is consistent.
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Laboratoire de Math´ematiques, Universit´e de Versailles St Quentin en Yvelines, France
Email address : [email protected] Universit´e Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Laboratoire de math´ematiques d’Orsay, 91405, Orsay,France
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