Refined curve counting with tropical geometry

Abstract

The Severi degree is the degree of the Severi variety parametrizing plane curves of degree $d$ with ${\it\delta}$ nodes. Recently, Göttsche and Shende gave two refinements of Severi degrees, polynomials in a variable $y$, which are conjecturally equal, for large $d$. At $y=1$, one of the refinements, the relative Severi degree, specializes to the (non-relative) Severi degree. We give a tropical description of the refined Severi degrees, in terms of a refined tropical curve count for all toric surfaces. We also refine the equivalent count of floor diagrams for Hirzebruch and rational ruled surfaces. Our description implies that, for fixed ${\it\delta}$, the refined Severi degrees are polynomials in $d$ and $y$, for large $d$. As a consequence, we show that, for ${\it\delta}\leqslant 10$ and all $d\geqslant {\it\delta}/2+1$, both refinements of Göttsche and Shende agree and equal our refined counts of tropical curves and floor diagrams.