Considering a compact Riemann surface of genus greater than two, a Higgs~bundle is a pair composed of a holomorphic bundle over the Riemann surface, joint with an auxiliar vector field, so-called Higgs field. This theory started around thirty years ago, with Hitchin's work, when he reduced the self-duality equations from dimension four to dimension two, and so, studied those equations over Riemann surfaces. Hitchin baptized those fields as "Higgs fields" beacuse in the context of physics and gauge theory, they describe similar particles to those described by the Higgs bosson. Later, Simpson used the name "Higgs bundle" for a holomorphic bundle together with a Higgs field. Today, Higgs bundles are the subject of research in several areas such as non-abelian Hodge theory, Langlands, mirror symmetry, integrable systems, quantum field theory (QFT), among others. The main purposes here are to introduce these objects, and to present a brief construction of the moduli space of Higgs bundles.
After providing a suitable definition of numerical effectiveness for Higgs bundles, and a related notion of numerical flatness, in this paper we prove, together with some side results, that all Chern classes of a Higgs-numerically flat Higgs bundle vanish, and that a Higgs bundle is Higgs-numerically flat if and only if it is has a filtration whose quotients are flat stable Higgs bundles. We also study the relation between these numerical properties of Higgs bundles and (semi)stability.
In this paper, we provide an $L^2$ fine resolution of the prolongation of a nilpotent harmonic bundle in the sense of Simpson-Mochizuki (an analytic analogue of the Kashiwara-Malgrange filtrations). This is the logarithmic analogue of Cattani-Kaplan-Schmid's and Kashiwara-Kawai's results on the $L^2$ interpretation of the intersection complex. As an application, we give an $L^2$-theoretic proof to the Nadel-Kawamata-Viehweg vanishing theorem with coefficients in a nilpotent Higgs bundle.
We define a Fourier-Mukai transform for Higgs bundles on smooth curves and study its properties. It is shown that the transform of a stable zero-degree Higgs bundle is an algebraic vector bundle on the cotangent bundle of the Jacobian of the curve. We show that this transformed bundle admits a natural extension to an algebraic vector bundle over a projective compactification of the base. The main result is that the original Higgs bundle can be reconstructed from this extension. We also compute certain invariants of the transformed bundle.
We give a proof of the conjecture that a semistable Higgs bundle is strongly Higgs semistable in the case of small ranks, based upon the fact that there exists a gr-semistable Griffiths-transverse filtration on a $\nabla$-invariant semistable vector bundle. The latter is a generalization of a result of Carlos Simpson.
In ``Ramified G-bundles as parabolic bundles'' (J. Ramanujan Math. Soc. (2003) Vol. 18) with Balaji and Nagaraj we introduced the ramified principal bundles. The aim here is to define the Higgs bundles in the ramified context.
We characterize those unipotent representations of the fundamental group $π_1(X,x)$ of a compact Kaehler manifold $X$, which correspond to a Higgs bundle whose underlying Higgs field is equal to zero. The characterization is parallel to the one that R. Hain gave of those unipotent representations of $π_1(X,x)$ that can be realized as the monodromy of a flat connection on the holomorphically trivial vector bundle. We see that Hain's result and ours follow from a careful study of Simpson's correspondence between Higgs bundles and local systems.
This is an expository article on the recent developments of Hodge theory on moduli spaces of smooth projective varieties with semi-ample canonical line bundles.
We prove a closed formula counting semistable twisted Higgs bundles of fixed rank and degree over a smooth projective curve defined over a finite field. We also prove a formula for the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the moduli spaces of twisted Higgs bundles over a curve.
We link the periodicity of Hitchin's uniformizing Higgs bundle with the arithmetic geometry of its underlying curve. Some new relations are discovered. We also speculate on the whole class of periodic Higgs bundles.
The aim of this paper is to establish an equivalence of certain categories of Higgs bundles on a non-isotrivial elliptic surface $π: X \rightarrow C$ with $χ(X) > 0$ and certain categories of Parabolic Higgs bundles on $C$
We show that for any ample line bundle on a smooth complex projective variety with nonnegative Kodaira dimension, the semistability of co-Higgs bundles of implies the semistability of bundles. Then we investigate the criterion for surface $X$ to have $H^0(T_X)=H^0(S^2T_X)=0$, which implies that any co-Higgs structure of rank two is nilpotent.
Filtrations of numerically flat Higgs bundles and curve semistable Higgs bundles on Calabi-Yau manifolds
SISSA (Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati)（国际高等研究院）；INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Sezione di Trieste（意大利国家核物理研究所的里雅斯特分部）；IGAP (Institute for Geometry and Physics)（几何与物理研究所）；Arnold-Regge Center for Algebra, Geometry and Theoretical Physics（阿诺德-雷吉代数、几何与理论物理中心）
The moduli space of Higgs bundles has two stratifications. The Bialynicki-Birula stratification comes from the action of the non-zero complex numbers by multiplication on the Higgs field, and the Shatz stratification arises from the Harder-Narasimhan type of the vector bundle underlying a Higgs bundle. While these two stratification coincide in the case of rank two Higgs bundles, this is not the case in higher rank. In this paper we analyze the relation between the two stratifications for the moduli space of rank three Higgs bundles.
Let $M$ be a quasi-regular compact connected Sasakian manifold, and let $N = M/S^1$ be the base projective variety. We establish an equivalence between the class of Sasakian $G$-Higgs bundles over $M$ and the class of parabolic (or equivalently, ramified) $G$-Higgs bundles over the base $N$.
The existence and uniqueness of H-N reduction for the Higgs principal bundles over nonsingular projective variety is shown. We also extend the notion of H-N reduction for (Γ, G)-bundles and ramified G-bundles over a smooth curve.
In this paper we determine the spectral data parametrizing Higgs bundles in a generic fiber of the Hitchin map for the case where the structure group is the special Clifford group with fixed Clifford norm. These are spin and "twisted" spin Higgs bundles. The method used relates variations in spectral data with respect to the Hecke transformations for orthogonal bundles introduced by Abe. The explicit description also recovers a result from the geometric Langlands program which states that the fibers of the Hitchin map are the dual abelian varieties to the corresponding fibers of the moduli spa…
In this article we extend the proof given by Biswas and Gomez of a Torelli theorem for the moduli space of Higgs bundles with fixed determinant, to the parabolic situation.
We provide a partial classification of semistable Higgs bundles over a simply connected Calabi-Yau manifolds. Applications to a conjecture about a special class of semistable Higgs bundles are given. In particular, the conjecture is proved for K3 and Enriques surfaces, and some related classes of surfaces.
Let $k$ be an algebraic closure of finite fields with odd characteristic $p$ and a smooth projective scheme $\mathbf{X}/W(k)$. Let $\mathbf{X}^0$ be its generic fiber and $X$ the closed fiber. For $\mathbf{X}^0$ a curve Faltings conjectured that semistable Higgs bundles of slope zero over $\mathbf{X}^0_{\mathbb{C}_p}$ correspond to genuine representations of the algebraic fundamental group of $\mathbf{X}^0_{\mathbb{C}_p}$ in his $p$-adic Simpson correspondence. This paper intends to study the conjecture in the characteristic $p$ setting. Among other results, we show that isomorphism classes of…
We give a Miyaoka-type semistability criterion for principal Higgs G-bundles E on complex projective manifolds of any dimension, i.e., we prove that E is semistable and the second Chern class of its adjoint bundle vanishes if and only if certain line bundles, obtained from the characters of the parabolic subgroups of G, are numerically effective. We also give alternative characterizations in terms of a notion of numerical effectiveness of Higgs vector bundles we have recently introduced.
We study topologically trivial $G$-Higgs bundles over an elliptic curve $X$ when the structure group $G$ is a connected real form of a complex semisimple Lie group $G^{\mathbb{C}}$. We achieve a description of their (reduced) moduli space, the associated Hitchin fibration and the finite morphism to the moduli space of $G^{\mathbb{C}}$-Higgs bundles.
We give a variant of the Beauville--Narasimhan--Ramanan correspondence for irregular parabolic Higgs bundles with semi-simple irregular part and show that it defines a Poisson isomorphism between certain irregular Dolbeault moduli spaces of a curve and relative Picard bundles of families of ruled surfaces over a curve.
We generalize the construction of M. Lieblich for the compactification of the moduli stack of $\PGL_r$-bundles on algebraic spaces to the moduli stack of Tanaka-Thomas $\PGL_r$-Higgs bundles on algebraic schemes. The method we use is the moduli stack of Higgs version of Azumaya algebras. In the case of smooth surfaces, we obtain a virtual fundamental class on the moduli stack of $\PGL_r$-Higgs bundles. An application to the Vafa-Witten invariants is discussed.
We present a systematic study of involutions on the moduli space of $G$-Higgs bundles over an elliptic curve $X$, where $G$ is complex reductive affine algebraic group. The fixed point loci in the moduli space of $G$-Higgs bundles on $X$, and in the moduli space of representations of the fundamental group of $X$ into $G$, are described. This leads to an explicit description of the moduli spaces of pseudo-real $G$-Higgs bundles over $X$.
Let $X$ be a smooth projective curve of genus $g$ over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p>2$. We prove that any rank $3$ nilpotent semistable Higgs bundle $(E,θ)$ on $X$ is a strongly semistable Higgs bundle. This gives a partially affirmative answer to a conjecture of Lan-Sheng-Zuo \cite{LanShengZuo12ii}\footnotemark[1]. In addition, we prove a tensor product theorem for strongly semistable Higgs bundles with $p$ satisfying some bounds (Theorem \ref{TensorTheorem}). From this we reprove a tensor theorem for semistable Higgs bundles on the condition that the Lan-Sheng-Zuo c…
We construct five families of two-dimensional moduli spaces of parabolic Higgs bundles (respectively local systems) by taking the equivariant Hilbert scheme of a certain finite group acting on the cotangent bundle of an elliptic curve. We show that the Hilbert scheme of m points of these surfaces is again a moduli space of parabolic Higgs bundles (respectively local systems), confirming a conjecture of Boalch in these cases and extending a result of Gorsky--Nekrasov--Rubtsov. Using the McKay correspondence we establish the autoduality conjecture for the derived categories of the moduli spaces …
We give a complete description of the two-dimensional moduli spaces of stable Higgs bundles of rank 2 over complex projective line with one irregular singular point, having a regular leading-order term, and endowed with a generic compatible parabolic structure such that the parabolic degree of the Higgs bundle is 0. Our method relies on elliptic fibrations of the rational elliptic surface, an equivalence of categories between irregular Higgs bundles and some sheaves on a ruled surface, and an analysis of stability conditions.
Let $π: X = \mathbb{P}_C(E) \longrightarrow C$ be a ruled surface over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic 0, with a fixed polarization $L$ on $X$. In this paper, we show that pullback of a (semi)stable Higgs bundle on $C$ under $π$ is a $L$-(semi)stable Higgs bundle. Conversely, if $(V,θ)$ is a $L$-(semi)stable Higgs bundle on $X$ with $c_1(V)= π^*(\bf d \rm)$ for some divisor $\bf d \rm $ of degree $d$ on $C$ and $c_2(V)=0$, then there exists a (semi)stable Higgs bundle $(W,ψ)$ of degree $d$ on $C$ whose pullback under $π$ is isomorphic to $(V,θ)$. As a consequence, we get an…
A $\mathrm{U}(p,q)$-Higgs bundle on a Riemann surface (twisted by a line bundle) consists of a pair of holomorphic vector bundles, together with a pair of (twisted) maps between them. Their moduli spaces depend on a real parameter $α$. In this paper we study wall crossing for the moduli spaces of $α$-polystable twisted $\mathrm{U}(p,q)$-Higgs bundles. Our main result is that the moduli spaces are birational for a certain range of the parameter and we deduce irreducibility results using known results on Higgs bundles. Quiver bundles and the Hitchin-Kobayashi correspondence play an essential rol…
Hausel and Rodriguez-Villegas conjectured that the intersection form on the moduli space of stable PGL_n-Higgs bundles on a curve vanishes if the degree is coprime to n. In this note we prove this conjecture. Along the way we show that moduli spaces of stable chains are irreducible for stability parameters larger than the stability condition induced form stability of Higgs bundles.
We prove a generalization of the Fujita-Kawamata-Zuo semi-positivity Theorem for filtered regular meromorphic Higgs bundles and tame harmonic bundles. Our approach gives a new proof in the cases already considered by these authors. We give also an application to the geometry of smooth quasi-projective complex varieties admitting a semisimple complex local system with infinite monodromy.
We explore relations between Higgs bundles that result from isogenies between low-dimensional Lie groups, with special attention to the spectral data for the Higgs bundles. We focus on isogenies onto $SO(4,C)$ and $SO(6,C)$ and their split real forms. Using fiber products of spectral curves, we obtain directly the desingularizations of the (necessarily singular) spectral curves associated to orthogonal Higgs bundles. In the case of $SO(6,C)$ our construction can be interpreted as a new description of Recillas' trigonal construction.
Given a vector bundle $E$ on a smooth projective curve or surface $X$ carrying the structure of a $V$-twisted Hitchin pair for some vector bundle $V$, we observe that the associated tautological bundle $E^{[n]}$ on the punctual Hilbert scheme of points $X^{[n]}$ has an induced structure of a $((V^\vee)^{[n]})^\vee$-twisted Hitchin pair, where $(V^\vee)^{[n]}$ is a vector bundle on $X^{[n]}$ constructed using the dual $V^\vee$ of $V$. In particular, a Higgs bundle on $X$ induces a logarithmic Higgs bundle on the Hilbert scheme $X^{[n]}$. We then show that the known results on stability of tauto…
Let $X$ be a compact Riemann surface of genus $g\geq 3$ and let $\mathcal{M}_{\mathrm{par}}$ be the moduli space of semistable parabolic bundles over $X$. Let $\mathcal{M}_{\mathrm{parH}}$ denote the moduli space of semistable parabolic Higgs bundles over $X$. In this article, we study the Picard group of $\mathcal{M}_{\mathrm{par}}$ and $\mathcal{M}_{\mathrm{parH}}$.
This is a sequel to "Kodaira-Saito vanishing via Higgs bundles in positive characteristic" (arXiv:1611.09880). However, unlike the previous paper, all the arguments here are in characteristic zero. The main result is a Kodaira vanishing theorem for semistable parabolic Higgs bundles with trivial parabolic Chern classes. This implies a general semipositivity theorem. This also implies a Kodaira-Saito vanishing theorem for complex variations of Hodge structure.
Let $G$ be a real reductive Lie group, and $H^{\mathbb{C}}$ the complexification of its maximal compact subgroup $H\subset G$. We consider classes of semistable $G$-Higgs bundles over a Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g\geq2$ whose underlying $H^{\mathbb{C}}$-principal bundle is unstable. This allows us to find obstructions to a deformation retract from the moduli space of $G$-Higgs bundles over $X$ to the moduli space of $H^{\mathbb{C}}$-bundles over $X$, in contrast with the situation when $g=1$, and to show reducibility of the nilpotent cone of the moduli space of $G$-Higgs bundles, for $G$ c…
We determine some classes of varieties X - that include the varieties with numerically effective tangent bundle - satisfying the following property: if E is a Higgs bundle such that f*E is semistable for any morphism f from a smooth projective curve to X, then E is slope semistable and the discriminant of E is zero in H4(X,R). We also characterize some classes of varieties such that the underlying vector bundle of a slope semistable Higgs bundle is always slope semistable.
In this note we prove a new explicit formula for the invariants of moduli spaces of twisted Higgs bundles over P^1 and we relate these invariants to the invariants of moduli spaces of representations of some infinite symmetric quiver. The formula can be easily implemented for computations and it is in agreement with the existing conjectures for the invariants of twisted Higgs bundles over curves. Results of this note were presented in Oberwolfach in May 2014.
We introduce the notions of deformation Higgs bundle and Riemann-Finsler metric on the moduli space of polarized varieties. We also use the Higgs-de Rham flow in the p-adic setting. These are the key novelties in our program.
We study polystable Higgs bundles twisted by a line bundle over a compact Kähler manifold. These form a Tannakian category when the first and second Chern classes of the bundle are zero. In this paper we identify the corresponding Tannaka group in the case in which the line bundle is of finite order. This group is described in terms of the pro-reductive completion of the fundamental group of the manifold, and the character associated to the line bundle.
We calculate the characteristic classes for flat SL(n,R) and Sp(2m,R)-bundles over a compact surface as functions of the spectral data in the Higgs bundle description, which consists of the points of order 2 in an abelian variety. Using similar methods we produce a conjectural mirror for the moduli space of flat U(m,m)-bundles with a fixed characteristic class. This is a hyperholomorphic bundle over the Sp(2m,C)-moduli space.
We study three instability stratifications of the stack of twisted Higgs bundle of a fixed rank and degree on a smooth complex projective curve. The first is the Harder-Narasimhan (HN) stratification, defined by the instability type of the Higgs bundle. The second is the bundle Harder-Narasimhan (bHN) stratification, defined by the instability type of the underlying bundle. While an unstable HN stratum fibres over the stack parametrising Higgs bundles which are isomorphic to their graded, this is not true for Higgs bundles of unstable bHN type. Obtaining such a fibration requires refining the …
We prove a Torelli theorem for the moduli space of semistable parabolic Higgs bundles over a smooth complex projective algebraic curve under the assumption that the parabolic weight system is generic. When the genus is at least two, using this result we also prove a Torelli theorem for the moduli space of semistable parabolic bundles of rank at least two with generic parabolic weights. The key input in the proofs is a method of J.C. Hurtubise, Integrable systems and algebraic surfaces, Duke Math. Jour. 83 (1996), 19--49.
In this paper we study $G$-Higgs bundles over an elliptic curve when the structure group $G$ is a classical complex reductive Lie group. Modifying the notion of family, we define a new moduli problem for the classification of semistable $G$-Higgs bundles of a given topological type over an elliptic curve and we give an explicit description of the associated moduli space as a finite quotient of a product of copies of the cotangent bundle of the elliptic curve. We construct a bijective morphism from this new moduli space to the usual moduli space of semistable $G$-Higgs bundles, proving that the…
The paper considers the Dirac operator on a Riemann surface coupled to a symplectic holomorphic vector bundle W. Each spinor in the null-space generates through the moment map a Higgs bundle, and varying W one obtains a holomorphic Lagrangian subvariety in the moduli space of Higgs bundles. Applying this to the irreducible symplectic representations of SL(2) we obtain Lagrangian submanifolds of the rank 2 moduli space which link up with m-period points on the Prym variety of the spectral curve as well as Brill-Noether loci on the moduli space of semistable bundles. The case of genus 2 is inves…
Like the Higgs bundles on a Riemann surface who played an important role in the study of representation of the fundamental group of the surface, the parabolic Higgs bundles play also their importance in the study of the fundamental group but of punctured surface. In this paper, we shall give an algorithm to calculate the (virtual) motive (i.e in a suitable Grothendieck ring) of the moduli spaces of parabolic Higgs bundles of fixed rank, fixed degree and fixed parabolic structure, using localization with respect to the circle action.
Let X be a compact Riemann surface together with a finite set of marked points. We use Morse theoretic techniques to compute the Betti numbers of the parabolic U(2,1)-Higgs bundles moduli spaces over X. We give examples for one marked point showing that the Poincare polynomials depend on the system of weights of the parabolic bundle.
We present a survey on the moduli spaces of rank 2 quadric bundles over a compact Riemann surface X. These are objects which generalise orthogonal bundles and which naturally occur through the study of the connected components of the moduli spaces of Higgs bundles over X for the real symplectic group Sp(4,R), with non-maximal Toledo invariant. Hence they are also related with the moduli space of representations of $π_1(X)$ in Sp(4,R). We explain this motivation in some detail.
Let $X$ be an irreducible smooth projective curve of genus $g \geq 2$ over $\mathbb{C}$. Let $G$ be a connected reductive affine algebraic group over $\mathbb{C}$. Let $\mathrm{M}_{G, {\rm Higgs}}^δ$ be the moduli space of semistable principal $G$--Higgs bundles on $X$ of topological type $δ\in π_1(G)$. In this article, we compute the fundamental group and Picard group of $\mathrm{M}_{G, {\rm Higgs}}^δ$.
Building on our previous joint work with A. Schmitt [7] we explain a recursive algorithm to determine the cohomology of moduli spaces of Higgs bundles on any given curve (in the coprime situation). As an application of the method we compute the y-genus of the space of PGL_n-Higgs bundles for any rank n, confirming a conjecture of T. Hausel.
