Naturality of polyfold invariants and pulling back abstract perturbations

Abstract: It is possible to construct distinct polyfolds which model a given moduli space problem in subtly different ways. These distinct polyfolds yield invariants which, a priori, we cannot assume are equivalent. We provide a general framework for proving that polyfold invariants are natural, in the sense that under a mild hypothesis (the existence of an ``intermediary subbundle'' of a strong polyfold bundle) the polyfold invariants for such different models will be equal. As an application, we show that the polyfold Gromov-Witten invariants are independent of all choices made in the construction of the Gromov-Witten polyfolds. Furthermore, we show that the polyfold Gromov-Witten invariants are independent of the choice of exponential decay at the marked points. In addition, we consider the following problem. Given a map between polyfolds, we cannot naively consider the restriction of this map to the respective perturbed solution spaces. Under a mild topological hypothesis on the map, we show how to pullback abstract perturbations which then allows us to obtain a well-defined map between the perturbed solution spaces. As an application, we show that there exists a well-defined permutation map between the perturbed Gromov-Witten moduli spaces.