In this paper we investigate the moduli space of parabolic Higgs bundles over a punctured Riemann surface with varying weights at the punctures. We show that the harmonic metric depends analytically on the weights and the stable Higgs bundle. This gives a Higgs bundle generalisation of a theorem of McOwen on the existence of hyperbolic cone metrics on a punctured surface within a given conformal class, and a generalisation of a theorem of Judge on the analytic parametrisation of these metrics.
In \cite{BR1}, \cite{BR2}, a parabolic determinant line bundle on a moduli space of stable parabolic bundles was constructed, along with a Hermitian structure on it. The construction of the Hermitian structure was indirect: The parabolic determinant line bundle was identified with the pullback of the determinant line bundle on a moduli space of usual vector bundles over a covering curve. The Hermitian structure on the parabolic determinant bundle was taken to be the pullback of the Quillen metric on the determinant line bundle on the moduli space of usual vector bundles. Here a direct construc…
Given a discrete subgroup $Γ$ of finite co-volume of $\mathrm{PGL}(2,\mathbb{R})$, we define and study parabolic vector bundles on the quotient $Σ$ of the (extended) hyperbolic plane by $Γ$. If $Γ$ contains an orientation-reversing isometry, then the above is equivalent to studying real and quaternionic parabolic vector bundles on the orientation cover of $Σ$. We then prove that isomorphism classes of polystable real and quaternionic parabolic vector bundles are in bijective correspondence with equivalence classes of real and quaternionic unitary representations of $Γ$. Similar results are obt…
We use the Kobayashi-Hitchin correspondence for parabolic bundles to reprove the results of Troyanov and Luo-Tian regarding existence and uniqueness of conformal spherical metrics on the Riemann sphere with prescribed cone angles in the interval $(0, 2π)$ at a given configuration of three or more points.
In this note, by using the Yang-Mills-Higgs flow, we show that semistable Higgs bundles with vanishing the first and second Chern numbers over compact Käher manifolds must admit a filtration whose quotients are Hermitian flat Higgs bundles.
In this paper, we study Higgs bundles on non-compact Hermitian manifolds. Under some assumptions for the underlying Hermitian manifolds which are not necessarily Kähler, we solve the Hermitian-Einstein equation on analytically stable Higgs bundles.
In this paper, using Donaldson's heat flow, we show that the semi-stability of a Higgs bundle over a compact Kähler manifold implies the existence of approximate Hermitian-Einstein structure on the Higgs bundle.
In this paper, we consider the gradient flow of the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional for Higgs pairs on a Hermitian vector bundle $(E, H_{0})$ over a compact Kähler manifold $(M, ω)$. We study the asymptotic behavior of the Yang-Mills-Higgs flow for Higgs pairs at infinity, and show that the limiting Higgs sheaf is isomorphic to the double dual of the graded Higgs sheaves associated to the Harder-Narasimhan-Seshadri filtration of the initial Higgs bundle.
The aim of this paper is to construct the parabolic version of the Donaldson--Uhlenbeck compactification for the moduli space of parabolic stable bundles on an algenraic surface with parabolic structures along a divisor with normal crossing singularities. We prove the non--emptiness of the moduli space of parabolic stable bundles of rank 2 and also prove the existence of components with smooth points.
We generalize the classical Beauville-Narasimhan-Ramanan correspondence to the case of parabolic Higgs bundles with regular singularities and Higgs $V$-bundles. Using this correspondence along with Bott-Morse theoretic techniques we provide an exact component count for moduli spaces of maximal parabolic $\text{Sp}\left( 2n,\mathbb{R} \right)$-Higgs bundles with fixed parabolic structure.
We introduce a notion of admissible Hermitian metrics on parabolic bundles and define positivity properties for the same. We develop Chern-Weil theory for parabolic bundles and prove that our metric notions coincide with the already existing algebro-geometric versions of parabolic Chern classes. We also formulate a Griffiths conjecture in the parabolic setting and prove some results that provide evidence in its favour for certain kinds of parabolic bundles. For these kinds of parabolic structures, we prove that the conjecture holds on Riemann surfaces. We also prove that a Berndtsson-type resu…
Given a smooth complex projective variety X and a smooth divisor D on X, we prove the existence of Hermitian-Einstein connections, with respect to a Poincaré-type metric on X - D, on polystable parabolic principal Higgs bundles with parabolic structure over D, satisfying certain conditions on its restriction to D.
Let X be a smooth complex projective curve and S a finite subset of X. We show that an orthogonal or symplectic parabolic Higgs bundle on X with parabolic structure over S admits a Hermitian-Einstein connection if and only if it is polystable.
We study natural families of d-bar operators on the moduli space of stable parabolic vector bundles. Applying a families index theorem for hyperbolic cusp operators from our previous work, we find formulae for the Chern characters of the associated index bundles. The contributions from the cusps are explicitly expressed in terms of the Chern characters of natural vector bundles related to the parabolic structure. We show that our result implies formulae for the Chern classes of the associated determinant bundles consistent with a result of Takhtajan and Zograf.
We compute the Betti numbers of the moduli space of rank 3 parabolic Higgs bundles, using Morse theory. A key point is that certain critical submanifolds of the Morse function can be identified with moduli spaces of parabolic triples. These moduli spaces come in families depending on a real parameter and we study their variation with this parameter.
For a semisimple real Lie group $G$, we study topological properties of moduli spaces of polystable parabolic $G$-Higgs bundles over a Riemann surface with a divisor of finitely many distinct points. For a split real form of a complex simple Lie group, we compute the dimension of apparent parabolic Teichm{ü}ller components. In the case of isometry groups of classical Hermitian symmetric spaces of tube type, we provide new topological invariants for maximal parabolic $G$-Higgs bundles arising from a correspondence to orbifold Higgs bundles. Using orbifold cohomology we count the least number of…
Take an irreducible smooth projective curve $X$ defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, and fix finitely many distinct point $D\, =\, \{x_1,\, \cdots,\, x_n\}$ of it; for each point $x\, \in\, D$ fix a positive integer $N_x$. Take a nonconstant map $f\, :\, Y\, \longrightarrow \, X$ from an irreducible smooth projective curve. We construct a natural subbundle $\mathcal{F}\, \subset\, f_*{\mathcal O}_Y$ using $(D,\, \{N_x\}_{x\in D})$. Let $E_*$ be a stable parabolic vector bundle whose parabolic weights at each $x\, \in\, D$ are integral multiples of $\frac{1}{N_x}$.…
We formulate a correspondence between SU(2) monopole chains and ``spectral data'', consisting of curves in $\mathbb{CP}^1\times\mathbb{CP}^1$ equipped with parabolic line bundles. This is the analogue for monopole chains of Donaldson's association of monopoles with rational maps. The construction is based on the Nahm transform, which relates monopole chains to Higgs bundles on the cylinder. As an application, we classify charge $k$ monopole chains which are invariant under actions of $\mathbb{Z}_{2k}$. We present images of these symmetric monopole chains that were constructed using a numerical…
Let $E$ be a holomorphic vector bundle. Let $θ$ be a Higgs field, that is a holomorphic section of $End(E)\otimesΩ^{1,0}_X$ satisfying $θ^2=0$. Let $h$ be a pluriharmonic metric of the Higgs bundle $(E,θ)$. The tuple $(E,θ,h)$ is called a harmonic bundle. Let $X$ be a complex manifold, and $D$ be a normal crossing divisor of $X$. In this paper, we study the harmonic bundle $(E,θ,h)$ over $X-D$. We regard $D$ as the singularity of $(E,θ,h)$, and we are particularly interested in the asymptotic behaviour of the harmonic bundle around $D$. We will see that it is similar to the asymptotic behaviou…
Using the $L^2$-norm of the Higgs field as a Morse function, we count the number of connected components of the moduli space of parabolic $U(p,q)$-Higgs bundles over a Riemann surface with a finite number of marked points, under certain genericity conditions on the parabolic structure. This space is homeomorphic to the moduli space of representations of the fundamental group of the punctured surface in $U(p,q)$, with fixed compact holonomy classes around the marked points. We apply our results to the study of representations of the fundamental group of elliptic surfaces of general type.
This is a review article on some applications of generalised parabolic structures to the study of torsion free sheaves and $L$-twisted Hitchin pairs on nodal curves. In particular, we survey on the relation between representations of the fundamental group of a nodal curve and the moduli spaces of generalised parabolic bundles and generalised parabolic $L$-twisted Hitchin pairs on its normalisation as well as on an analogue of the Hitchin map for generalised parabolic $L$-twisted Hitchin pairs.
On a complex manifold, a co-Higgs bundle is a holomorphic vector bundle with an endomorphism twisted by the tangent bundle. The notion of generalized holomorphic bundle in Hitchin's generalized geometry coincides with that of co-Higgs bundle when the generalized complex manifold is ordinary complex. Schwarzenberger's rank-2 vector bundle on the projective plane, constructed from a line bundle on the double cover CP^1 \times CP^1 \to CP^2, is naturally a co-Higgs bundle, with the twisted endomorphism, or "Higgs field", also descending from the double cover. Allowing the branch conic to vary, we…
For moduli space of stable parabolic bundles on a compact Riemann surface, we derive an explicit formula for the curvature of its canonical line bundle with respect to Quillen's metric and interpret it as a local index theorem for the family of dbar-operators in associated parabolic endomorphism bundles. The formula consists of two terms: one standard (proportional to the canonical Kaehler form on the moduli space), and one nonstandard, called a cuspidal defect, that is defined by means of special values of the Eisenstein-Maass series. The cuspidal defect is explicitly expressed through curvat…
We study the ring generated by the Chern classes of tautological line bundles on the moduli space of parabolic bundles of arbitrary rank on a Riemann surface. We show the Poincaré duals to these Chern classes have simple geometric representatives. We use this construction to show that the ring generated by these Chern classes vanishes below the dimension of the moduli space, in analogy with the Newstead-Ramanan conjecture for stable bundles.
We present an explicit construction of the moduli spaces of rank 2 stable parabolic bundles of parabolic degree 0 over the Riemann sphere, corresponding to "optimum" open weight chambers of parabolic weights in the weight polytope. The complexity of the different moduli space' weight chambers is understood in terms of the complexity of the actions of the corresponding groups of bundle automorphisms on stable parabolic structures. For the given choices of parabolic weights, $\mathscr{N}$ consists entirely of isomorphism classes of strictly stable parabolic bundles whose underlying Birkhoff-Grot…
We prove a Hitchin-Kobayashi correspondence for extensions of Higgs bundles. The results generalize known results for extensions of holomorphic bundles. Using Simpson's methods, we construct moduli spaces of stable objects. In an appendix we construct Bott-Chern forms for Higgs bundles
We construct explicit geometric models for moduli spaces of semi-stable strongly parabolic Higgs bundles over the Riemann sphere, in the case of rank two, four marked points, arbitrary degree, and arbitrary weights. The mechanism of construction relies on elementary geometric and combinatorial techniques, based on a detailed study of orbit stability of (in general non-reductive) bundle automorphism groups on certain carefully crafted spaces. The aforementioned techniques are not exclusive to the case we examine, and this work elucidates a general approach to construct arbitrary moduli spaces o…
We define homogeneous principal Higgs and co-Higgs bundles over irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces of compact type. We provide a classification for each type of object up to isomorphism, which in each case can be interpreted as defining a moduli space.
The non-abelian Hodge correspondence identifies complex variations of Hodge structures with certain Higgs bundles. In this work we analyze this relationship, and some of its ramifications, when the variations of Hodge structures are determined by a (complete) one-dimensional family of compact Calabi-Yau manifolds. This setup enables us to apply techniques from mirror symmetry. For example, the corresponding Higgs bundles extend to parabolic Higgs bundles to the compactification of the base of the families. We determine the parabolic degrees of the underlying parabolic bundles in terms of the e…
Using the Morse-theoretic methods introduced by Hitchin, we prove that the moduli space of $\SO_0(1,n)$-Higgs bundles when $n$ is odd has two connected components.
The paper studies the locus in the rank 2 Higgs bundle moduli space corresponding to points which are critical for d of the Poisson commuting functions. These correspond to the Higgs field vanishing on a divisor of degree D. The degree D critical locus has an induced integrable system related to K(-D)-twisted Higgs bundles. Topological and differential-geometric properties of the critical loci are addressed.
We provide notions of numerical effectiveness and numerical flatness for Higgs vector bundles on compact Kähler manifolds in terms of fibre metrics. We prove several properties of bundles satisfying such conditions and in particular we show that numerically flat Higgs bundles have vanishing Chern classes, and that they admit filtrations whose quotients are stable flat Higgs bundles. We compare these definitions with those previously given in the case of projective varieties. Finally we study the relations between numerically effectiveness and semistability, establishing semistability criteria …
Given a generic stable strongly parabolic $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$-Higgs bundle $(\mathcal{E}, φ)$, we describe the family of harmonic metrics $h_t$ for the ray of Higgs bundles $(\mathcal{E}, t φ)$ for $t\gg0$ by perturbing from an explicitly constructed family of approximate solutions $h_t^{\mathrm{app}}$. We then describe the natural hyperKähler metric on $\mathcal{M}$ by comparing it to a simpler "semi-flat" hyperKähler metric. We prove that $g_{L^2} - g_{\mathrm{sf}} = O(\mathrm{e}^{-γt})$ along a generic ray, proving a version of Gaiotto-Moore-Neitzke's conjecture. Our results extend to weakly…
Let $M$ be the moduli space of rank 3 parabolic vector bundles over a Riemann surface with several punctures. By the Mehta-Seshadri correspondence, this is the space of rank 3 unitary representations of the fundamental group of the punctured surface with specified conjugacy classes of the images of each boundary component, up to conjugation by elements of the unitary group. For each puncture we consider the torus bundle on $M$ consisting of those representations where the image of the corresponding boundary component is a fixed element of the torus. We associate line bundles to these torus bun…
There is a well-known correspondence between the symplectic variety of representations of the fundamental group of a punctured Riemann surface into a compact Lie group G, with fixed conjugacy classes at the punctures, and a complex variety of holomorphic bundles on the unpunctured surface with a parabolic structure at the puncture points. For G=SU(2), we build a symplectic variety of pairs (representations of the fundamental group into G, `weighted frame' at the puncture points), and a corresponding complex variety of moduli of `framed parabolic bundles', which encompass respectively all of th…
Let $p$ be a Lie subalgebra of a semisimple Lie algebra $g$ and $(G,P)$ be the corresponding pair of connected Lie groups. A Cartan geometry of type $(G,P)$ associates to a smooth manifold $M$ a principal $P$-bundle and a Cartan connection, and a parabolic geometry is a Cartan geometry where $P$ is parabolic. We show that if $P$ is parabolic, the adjoint tractor bundle of a Cartan geometry, which is isomorphic to the Atiyah algebroid of the principal $P$-bundle, admits the structure of a (pre-)Courant algebroid, and we identify the topological obstruction to the bracket being a Courant bracket…
