We define $p$-adic $\mathrm {BPS}$ or $p\mathrm {BPS}$ invariants for moduli spaces $\operatorname {M}_{\beta,\chi }$ of one-dimensional sheaves on del Pezzo and K3 surfaces by means of integration over a non-archimedean local field $F$. Our definition relies on a canonical measure $\mu _{\rm can}$ on the $F$-analytic manifold associated to $\operatorname {M}_{\beta,\chi }$ and the $p\mathrm {BPS}$ invariants are integrals of natural ${\mathbb {G}}_m$ gerbes with respect to $\mu _{\rm can}$. A similar construction can be done for meromorphic and usual Higgs bundles on a curve. Our main theorem is a $\chi$-independence result for these $p\mathrm {BPS}$ invariants. For one-dimensional sheaves on del Pezzo surfaces and meromorphic Higgs bundles, we obtain as a corollary the agreement of $p\mathrm {BPS}$ with usual $\mathrm {BPS}$ invariants through a result of Maulik and Shen [Cohomological $\chi$-independence for moduli of one-dimensional sheaves and moduli of Higgs bundles, Geom. Topol. 27 (2023), 1539–1586].

Let $\sigma $ be a stability condition on the bounded derived category $D^b({\mathop{\mathrm {Coh}}\nolimits } W)$ of a Calabi–Yau threefold W and $\mathcal {M}$ a moduli stack parametrizing $\sigma $ -semistable objects of fixed topological type. We define generalized Donaldson–Thomas invariants which act as virtual counts of objects in $\mathcal {M}$ , fully generalizing the approach introduced by Kiem, Li and the author in the case of semistable sheaves. We construct an associated proper Deligne–Mumford stack $\widetilde {\mathcal {M}}^{\mathbb {C}^{\ast }}$ , called the $\mathbb {C}^{\ast }$ -rigidified intrinsic stabilizer reduction of $\mathcal {M}$ , with an induced semiperfect obstruction theory of virtual dimension zero, and define the generalized Donaldson–Thomas invariant via Kirwan blowups to be the degree of the associated virtual cycle $[\widetilde {\mathcal {M}}]^{\mathrm {vir}} \in A_0(\widetilde {\mathcal {M}})$ . This stays invariant under deformations of the complex structure of W. Applications include Bridgeland stability, polynomial stability, Gieseker and slope stability.

We prove the flow tree formula conjectured by Alexandrov and Pioline, which computes Donaldson–Thomas invariants of quivers with potentials in terms of a smaller set of attractor invariants. This result is obtained as a particular case of a more general flow tree formula reconstructing a consistent scattering diagram from its initial walls.

We prove a closed formula counting semistable twisted (or meromorphic) Higgs bundles of fixed rank and degree over a smooth projective curve of genus $g$ defined over a finite field, when the twisting line bundle degree is at least $2g-2$ (this includes the case of usual Higgs bundles). This yields a closed expression for the Donaldson–Thomas invariants of the moduli spaces of twisted Higgs bundles. We similarly deal with twisted quiver sheaves of type $A$ (finite or affine), obtaining in particular a Harder–Narasimhan-type formula counting semistable $U(p,q)$-Higgs bundles over a smooth projective curve defined over a finite field.

We derive some combinatorial consequences from the positivity of Donaldson–Thomas invariants for symmetric quivers conjectured by Kontsevich and Soibelman and proved recently by Efimov. These results are used to prove the Kac conjecture for quivers having at least one loop at every vertex.

In [M. Kontsevich and Y. Soibelman, Cohomological Hall algebra, exponential Hodge structures and motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1006.2706v2[math.AG]], the authors, in particular, associate to each finite quiver Q with a set of vertices I the so-called cohomological Hall algebra ℋ, which is ℤI≥0-graded. Its graded component ℋγ is defined as cohomology of the Artin moduli stack of representations with dimension vector γ. The product comes from natural correspondences which parameterize extensions of representations. In the case of a symmetric quiver, one can refine the grading to ℤI≥0×ℤ, and modify the product by a sign to get a super-commutative algebra (ℋ,⋆) (with parity induced by the ℤ-grading). It is conjectured in [M. Kontsevich and Y. Soibelman, Cohomological Hall algebra, exponential Hodge structures and motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1006.2706v2[math.AG]] that in this case the algebra (ℋ⊗ℚ,⋆) is free super-commutative generated by a ℤI≥0×ℤ-graded vector space of the form V =Vprim ⊗ℚ[x] , where x is a variable of bidegree (0,2)∈ℤI≥0×ℤ, and all the spaces ⨁ k∈ℤVprimγ,k, γ∈ℤI≥0. are finite-dimensional. In this paper we prove this conjecture (Theorem 1.1). We also prove some explicit bounds on pairs (γ,k) for which Vprimγ,k≠0 (Theorem 1.2). Passing to generating functions, we obtain the positivity result for quantum Donaldson–Thomas invariants, which was used by Mozgovoy to prove Kac’s conjecture for quivers with sufficiently many loops [S. Mozgovoy, Motivic Donaldson–Thomas invariants and Kac conjecture, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1103.2100v2[math.AG]]. Finally, we mention a connection with the paper of Reineke [M. Reineke, Degenerate cohomological Hall algebra and quantized Donaldson–Thomas invariants for m-loop quivers, Preprint (2011), arXiv:1102.3978v1[math.RT]].

A system of functional equations relating the Euler characteristics of moduli spaces of stable representations of quivers and the Euler characteristics of (Hilbert-scheme-type) framed versions of quiver moduli is derived. This is applied to wall-crossing formulas for the Donaldson–Thomas type invariants of M. Kontsevich and Y. Soibelman, in particular confirming their integrality.

A factorization formula for certain automorphisms of a Poisson algebra associated with a quiver is proved, which involves framed versions of moduli spaces of quiver representations. This factorization formula is related to wall-crossing formulae for Donaldson–Thomas type invariants of Kontsevich and Soibelman.