In this paper we study the $\mathbb{C}^*$-fixed points in moduli spaces of Higgs bundles over a compact Riemann surface for a complex semisimple Lie group and its real forms. These fixed points are called Hodge bundles and correspond to complex variations of Hodge structure. We introduce a topological invariant for Hodge bundles that generalizes the Toledo invariant appearing for Hermitian Lie groups. A main result of this paper is a bound on this invariant which generalizes both the Milnor-Wood inequality of the Hermitian case and the Arakelov inequalities of classical variations of Hodge structure. When the generalized Toledo invariant is maximal, we establish rigidity results for the associated variations of Hodge structure which generalize known rigidity results for maximal Higgs bundles and their associated maximal representations in the Hermitian case.
The Hodge numerical invariants of a variation of Hodge structure over a smooth quas--projective variety are a measure of complexity for the global twisting of the limit mixed Hodge structure when it degenerates. These invariants appear in inequalities which they may have correction terms, called Arakelov inequalities. One may investigate the correction term to make them into equalities, also called Arakelov equalities. We investigate numerical Arakelov type (in)equilities for a family of surfaces fibered by curves. Our method uses Arakelov identities in a weight 1 and also in a weight 2 variat…
We give two kinds of generalizations of Arakelov type inequalities for higher dimensional families. These results give higher dimensional generalizations (in both fibers and bases) of the weakly boundedness in Paršin-Arakelov's reformulation of the geometric Shafarevich conjecture. As a consequence, we deduce the following results. Hyperbolicity: We give an alternative proof (using the theory of degeneration of Hodge structure) to the hyperbolicity (in Paršin-Arakelov's reformulation, i.e. Viehweg's hyperbolicity conjecture) of the base of a family with maximal variation whose general fibers a…
We develop a Hodge theoretic invariant for families of projective manifolds that measures the potential failure of an Arakelov-type inequality in higher dimensions, one that naturally generalizes the classical Arakelov inequality over regular quasi-projective curves. We show that for families of manifolds with ample canonical bundle this invariant is uniformly bounded. As a consequence we establish that such families over a base of arbitrary dimension verify the aforementioned Arakelov inequality, answering a question of Viehweg.
We prove a Second Main Theorem type inequality for any log-smooth projective pair $(X,D)$ such that $X\setminus D$ supports a complex polarized variation of Hodge structures. This can be viewed as a Nevanlinna theoretic analogue of the Arakelov inequalities for variations of Hodge structures due to Deligne, Peters and Jost-Zuo. As an application, we obtain in this context a criterion of hyperbolicity that we use to derive a vast generalization of a well-known hyperbolicity result of Nadel. The first ingredient of our proof is a Second Main Theorem type inequality for any log-smooth projective …
In previous work jointly with Geske, Maxim and Wang, we constructed a mixed Hodge structure (MHS) on the torsion part of Alexander modules, which generalizes the MHS on the cohomology of the Milnor fiber for weighted homogeneous polynomials. The cohomology of a Milnor fiber carries a monodromy action, whose semisimple part is an isomorphism of MHS. The natural question of whether this result still holds for Alexander modules was then posed. In this paper, we give a positive answer to that question, which implies that the direct sum decomposition of the torsion part of Alexander modules into ge…
Looking at the finite étale congruence covers $X(p)$ of a complex algebraic variety $X$ equipped with a variation of integral polarized Hodge structures whose period map is quasi-finite, we show that both the minimal gonality among all curves contained in $X(p)$ and the minimal volume among all subvarieties of $X(p)$ tend to infinity with $p$. This applies for example to Shimura varieties, moduli spaces of curves, moduli spaces of abelian varieties, moduli spaces of Calabi-Yau varieties, and can be made effective in many cases. The proof goes roughly as follows. We first prove a generalization…
Motivated by the limit mixed Hodge structure on the Milnor fiber of a hypersurface singularity germ, we construct a natural mixed Hodge structure on the torsion part of the Alexander modules of a smooth connected complex algebraic variety. More precisely, let $U$ be a smooth connected complex algebraic variety and let $f\colon U\to \mathbb{C}^*$ be an algebraic map inducing an epimorphism in fundamental groups. The pullback of the universal cover of $\mathbb{C}^*$ by $f$ gives rise to an infinite cyclic cover $U^f$ of $U$. The action of the deck group $\mathbb{Z}$ on $U^f$ induces a $\mathbb{Q…
We generalize a result, on the pro-representability of Milnor $K$-cohomology groups at the identity, that's due to Bloch. In particular, we prove, for $X$ a smooth, proper, and geometrically connected variety defined over an algebraic field extension $k/\mathbb{Q}$, that the functor \[\mathscr{T}_{X}^{i,3}(A)=\ker\left(H^i(X_A,\mathcal{K}_{3,X_A}^M)\rightarrow H^i(X,\mathcal{K}_{3,X}^M)\right),\] defined on Artin local $k$-algebras $(A,\mathfrak{m}_A)$ with $A/\mathfrak{m}_A\cong k$, is pro-representable provided that certain Hodge numbers of $X$ vanish.
