2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/73452We study deformations of associative submanifolds $Y^3\subset M^7$ of a $G_2$ manifold $M^7$. We show that the deformation space can be perturbed to be smooth, and it can be made compact and zero dimensional by constraining it with an additional equation. This allows us to associate local invariants to associative submanifolds of $M$. The local equations at each associative $Y$ are restrictions of a global equation on a certain associated Grassmann bundle over $ M$.16 pages, 2 figures, revised versionGeometric TopologyDifferential Geometry53C38, 53C29, 57R57text