We introduce a general method to induce Bridgeland stability conditions on semiorthogonal decompositions. In particular, we prove the existence of Bridgeland stability conditions on the Kuznetsov component of the derived category of many Fano threefolds (including all but one deformation type of Picard rank one), and of cubic fourfolds. As an application, in the appendix, written jointly with Xiaolei Zhao, we give a variant of the proof of the Torelli theorem for cubic fourfolds by Huybrechts and Rennemo.

We develop a theory of Bridgeland stability conditions and moduli spaces of semistable objects for a family of varieties. Our approach is based on and generalizes previous work by Abramovich–Polishchuk, Kuznetsov, Lieblich, and Piyaratne–Toda. Our notion includes openness of stability, semistable reduction, a support property uniformly across the family, and boundedness of semistable objects. We show that such a structure exists whenever stability conditions are known to exist on the fibers.Our main application is the generalization of Mukai’s theory for moduli spaces of semistable sheaves on K3 surfaces to moduli spaces of Bridgeland semistable objects in the Kuznetsov component associated to a cubic fourfold. This leads to the extension of theorems by Addington–Thomas and Huybrechts on the derived category of special cubic fourfolds, to a new proof of the integral Hodge conjecture, and to the construction of an infinite series of unirational locally complete families of polarized hyperkähler manifolds of K3 type.Other applications include the deformation-invariance of Donaldson–Thomas invariants counting Bridgeland stable objects on Calabi–Yau threefolds, and a method for constructing stability conditions on threefolds via degeneration.

We study arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay bundles on cubic threefolds by using derived category techniques. We prove that the moduli space of stable Ulrich bundles of any rank is always non-empty by showing that it is birational to a moduli space of semistable torsion sheaves on the projective plane endowed with the action of a Clifford algebra. We describe this birational isomorphism via wall-crossing in the space of Bridgeland stability conditions, in the example of instanton sheaves of minimal charge.