A formula of two-partition Hodge integrals

Abstract

Motivated by the Mariño-Vafa formula of Hodge integrals and physicists’ predictions on local Gromov-Witten invariants of toric Fano surfaces in a Calabi-Yau threefold, the third author conjectured a formula of certain Hodge integrals in terms of certain Chern-Simons invariants of the Hopf link. We prove this formula by virtual localization on moduli spaces of relative stable morphisms.