Towards a Theory of Logarithmic GLSM Moduli Spaces

Abstract

In this article, we establish foundations for a logarithmic compactification of general GLSM moduli spaces via the theory of stable log maps. We then illustrate our method via the key example of Witten's $r$-spin class. In the subsequent articles, we will push the technique to the general situation. One novelty of our theory is that such a compactification admits two virtual cycles, a usual virtual cycle and a "reduced virtual cycle". A key result of this article is that the reduced virtual cycle in the $r$-spin case equals to the r-spin virtual cycle as defined using cosection localization by Chang--Li--Li. The reduced virtual cycle has the advantage of being $\mathbb{C}^*$-equivariant for a non-trivial $\mathbb{C}^*$-action. The localization formula has a variety of applications such as computing higher genus Gromov--Witten invariants of quintic threefolds and the class of the locus of holomorphic differentials