Refined invariants of flopping curves and finite-dimensional Jacobi algebras.

We define and study refined Gopakumar-Vafa invariants of contractible curves in complex algebraic threefolds, alongside the cohomological Donaldson-Thomas theory of finite-dimensional Jacobi algebras. These Gopakumar-Vafa invariants can be constructed one of two ways: as cohomological BPS invariants of contraction algebras controlling the deformation theory of these curves, as defined by Donovan and Wemyss, or by feeding the moduli spaces that Sheldon Katz used to define genus zero Gopakumar-Vafa invariants into the machinery developed by Joyce et al. The conjecture that the two definitions give isomorphic results is a special case of a kind of categorified version of the strong rationality conjecture due to Pandharipande and Thomas, that we discuss and propose a means of proving. We prove the positivity of the cohomological/refined BPS invariants of all finite-dimensional Jacobi algebras. This result supports this strengthening of the strong rationality conjecture, as well as the conjecture of Brown and Wemyss stating that all finite-dimensional Jacobi algebras for appropriate symmetric quivers are isomorphic to contraction algebras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]