• 1 Warwick Mathematics Institute

The Severi degree is the degree of the Severi variety parametrizing plane curves of degree $d$ with $\delta$ nodes. Recently, Göttsche and Shende gave two refinements of Severi degrees, polynomials in a variable $q$, which are conjecturally equal, for large $d$. At $q=1$, one of the refinements, the relative Severi degree, specializes to the (non-relative) Severi degree. We give a combinatorial description of the refined Severi degrees, in terms of a $q$-analog count of Brugallé and Mikhalkin's floor diagrams. Our description implies that, for fixed $\delta$, the refined Severi degrees are polynomials in $d$ and $q$, for large $d$. As a consequence, we show that, for $\delta \leq 4$ and all $d$, both refinements of Göttsche and Shende agree and equal our $q$-count of floor diagrams.