For a compact Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g > 1$, $\Hom(π_1(X), PU(p,q))/PU(p,q)$ is the moduli space of flat $PU(p,q)$-connections on $X$. There are two invariants, the Chern class $c$ and the Toledo invariant $τ$ associated with each element in the moduli. The Toledo invariant is bounded in the range $-2min(p,q)(g-1) \le τ\le 2min(p,q)(g-1)$. This paper shows that the component, associated with a fixed $τ> 2(max(p,q)-1)(g-1)$ (resp. $τ< -2(max(p,q)-1)(g-1)$) and a fixed Chern class $c$, is connected (The restriction on $τ$ implies $p=q$).
Higgs bundles over a closed orientable surface can be defined for any real reductive Lie group G. In this paper we examine the case G=SO*(2n). We describe a rigidity phenomenon encountered in the case of maximal Toledo invariant. Using this and Morse theory in the moduli space of Higgs bundles, we show that the moduli space is connected in this maximal Toledo case. The Morse theory also allows us to show connectedness when the Toledo invariant is zero. The correspondence between Higgs bundles and surface group representations thus allows us to count the connected components with zero and maxim…
For a compact Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g > 1$, $\Hom(π_1(X), U(p,1))/U(p,1)$ is the moduli space of flat $\U(p,1)$-connections on $X$. There is an integer invariant, $τ$, the Toledo invariant associated with each element in $\Hom(π_1(X), U(p,1))/U(p,1)$. If $q = 1$, then $-2(g-1) \le τ\le 2(g-1)$. This paper shows that $\Hom(π_1(X), U(p,1))/U(p,1)$ has one connected component corresponding to each $τ\in 2Z$ with $-2(g-1) \le τ\le 2(g-1)$. Therefore the total number of connected components is $2(g-1) + 1$.
In this paper we study the moduli space of representations of a surface group (i.e., the fundamental group of a closed oriented surface) in the real symplectic group Sp(2n,R). The moduli space is partitioned by an integer invariant, called the Toledo invariant. This invariant is bounded by a Milnor-Wood type inequality. Our main result is a count of the number of connected components of the moduli space of maximal representations, i.e. representations with maximal Toledo invariant. Our approach uses the non-abelian Hodge theory correspondence proved in a companion paper arXiv:0909.4487 [math.D…
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 str…
We study the Brill-Noether stratification of the coarse moduli space of locally free stable and flat sheaves of a compact Kahler manifold, proving that these strata have quadratic algebraic singularities.
We consider the moduli space, in the sense of Kisin, of finite flat models of a 2-dimensional representation with values in a finite field of the absolute Galois group of a totally ramified extension of $mathbb{Q}_p$. We determine the connected components of this space and describe its irreducible components. These results prove a modified version of a conjecture of Kisin.
Exploiting the description of rings of differential operators as Azumaya algebras on cotangent bundles, we show that the moduli stack of flat connections on a curve (allowed to acquire orbifold points) defined over an algebraically closed field of positive characteristic is étale locally equivalent to a moduli stack of Higgs bundles over the Hitchin base. We then study the interplay with stability and generalize a result of Laszlo-Pauly, concerning properness of the Hitchin map. Using Arinkin's autoduality of compactified Jacobians we extend the main result of Bezrukavnikov-Braverman, the Lang…
We study the moduli functor of flat bundles on smooth, possibly non-proper, algebraic variety $X$ (over a field of characteristic zero). For this we introduce the notion of \emph{formal boundary} of $X$, denoted by $\partial X$, which is a formal analogue of the boundary at infinity of the Betti topological space associated to $X$. We explain how to construct two derived moduli functors $Vect^{\nabla}(X)$ and $Vect^{\nabla}(\partial X)$, of flat bundles on $X$ and on $\partial X$, as well as a restriction map $R : Vect^{\nabla}(X) \rightarrow Vect^\nabla(\partial X)$ from the former to the lat…
We determine the type of the zeta functions and the range of the dimensions of the moduli spaces of finite flat models of two-dimensional local Galois representations over finite fields. This gives a generalization of Raynaud's theorem on the uniqueness of finite flat models in low ramifications.
We prove that the non-ordinary component is connected in the moduli spaces of finite flat models of two-dimensional local Galois representations over finite fields. This was conjectured by Kisin. As an application to global Galois representations, we prove a theorem on the modularity comparing a deformation ring and a Hecke ring.
In this article, we give a survey of our construction of a local moduli space of scalar-flat Kähler ALE metrics in complex dimension $2$. We also prove an explicit formula for the dimension of this moduli space on a scalar-flat Kähler ALE surface which deforms to the minimal resolution of $\mathbb{C}^2/Γ$, where $Γ$ is a finite subgroup of ${\rm{U}}(2)$ without complex reflections, in terms of the embedding dimension of the singularity.
Given a proper morphism X -> S, we show that a large class of objects in the derived category of X naturally form an Artin stack locally of finite presentation over S. This class includes S-flat coherent sheaves and, more generally, contains the collection of all S-flat objects which can appear in the heart of a reasonable sheaf of t-structures on X. In this sense, this is the Mother of all Moduli Spaces (of sheaves). The proof proceeds by studying the finite presentation properties, deformation theory, and Grothendieck existence theorem for objects in the derived category, and then applying A…
It is well-known that del Pezzo surfaces of degree $9-n$ one-to-one correspond to flat $E_n$ bundles over an elliptic curve. In this paper, we construct $ADE$ bundles over a broader class of rational surfaces which we call $ADE$ surfaces, and extend the above correspondence to all flat $G$ bundles over an elliptic curve, where $G$ is any simply laced, simple, compact and simply-connected Lie group. In the sequel, we will construct $G$ bundles for non-simply laced Lie group $G$ over these rational surfaces, and extend the above correspondence to non-simply laced cases.
Let X be a proper scheme and Z a prestack over X equipped with a flat connection. We give a local-to-global description of D-modules on the prestack S(Z) of flat sections of Z. Examples of S(Z) include the moduli stacks of principal G-bundles and de Rham local systems on X. We show that the category of D-modules is equivalent to the category of ind-coherent sheaves which are equivariant with respect to infinitesimal Hecke groupoids parametrized by finite subsets of X. We describe a number of applications to geometric representation theory and conformal field theory, including a derived enhance…
We establish normal form theorems for a large class of singular flat connections on complex manifolds, including connections with logarithmic poles along weighted homogeneous Saito free divisors. As a result, we show that the moduli spaces of such connections admit the structure of algebraic quotient stacks. In order to prove these results, we introduce homogeneous Lie groupoids and study their representation theory. In this direction, we prove two main results: a Jordan-Chevalley decomposition theorem, and a linearization theorem. We give explicit normal forms for several examples of free div…
Using Szenes formula for multiple Bernoulli series we explain how to compute Witten series associated to classical Lie algebras. Particular instances of these series compute volumes of moduli spaces of flat bundles over surfaces, and also certain multiple zeta values.
In the genus one case, we make explicit some constructions of Veech on flat surfaces and generalize some geometric results of Thurston about moduli spaces of flat spheres as well as some equivalent ones but of an analytico-cohomological nature of Deligne-Mostow, which concern the monodromy of Appell-Lauricella hypergeometric functions. In the twin paper arXiv:1604.01812, we follow Thurston's approach and study moduli spaces of flat tori with conical singularities and prescribed holonomy by means of geometrical methods relying on surgeries for flat surfaces. In the present paper, we study the s…
The moduli space of flat SU(2) connections on a punctured surface, having prescribed holonomy around the punctures, is a compact smooth manifold if the prescription is generic. This paper gives a direct, elementary proof that the trace of the holonomy around a certain loop determines a Bott-Morse function on the moduli space which is perfect, meaning that the Morse inequalities are equalities. This leads to an attractive recursion for the Betti numbers of the moduli space, which agrees with the Harder-Narasimhan formula in the case of one puncture with holonomy -1.
We consider the moduli space of flat G-bundles over the twodimensional torus, where G is a real, compact, simple Lie group which is not simply connected. We show that the connected components that describe topologically non-trivial bundles are isomorphic as symplectic spaces to moduli spaces of topologically trivial bundles with a different structure group. Some physical applications of this isomorphism which allows to trade topological non-triviality for a change of the gauge group are sketched.
We prove that the universal family of polarized K3 surfaces of degree 2 can be extended to a flat family of stable slc pairs $(X,εR)$ over the toroidal compactification associated to the Coxeter fan. One-parameter degenerations of K3 surfaces in this family are described by integral-affine structures on a sphere with 24 singularities.
We give an explicit finite-dimensional model for the derived moduli stack of flat connections on $\mathbb{C}^k$ with logarithmic singularities along a weighted homogeneous Saito free divisor. We investigate in detail the case of plane curves of the form $x^p = y^q$ and relate the moduli spaces to the Grothendieck-Springer resolution. We also discuss the shifted Poisson geometry of these moduli spaces. Namely, we conjecture that the map restricting a logarithmic connection to the complement of the divisor admits a shifted coisotropic structure and we construct a shifted Poisson structure on the…
We consider the moduli space MN of flat unitary connections on an open Kaehler manifold U (complement of a divisor with normal crossings) with restrictions on their monodromy transformations. Using intersection and L2 cohomologies with degenerating coefficients we construct a natural symplectic form F on MN. When U is quasi-projective we prove that F is actually a Kaehler form.
Montonen-Olive duality implies that the categories of A-branes on the moduli spaces of Higgs bundles on a Riemann surface C for a pair of Langlands-dual groups are equivalent. We reformulate this as a statement about categories of B-branes on the quantized moduli spaces of flat connections for these groups. We show that it implies the statement of the Quantum Geometric Langlands duality with a purely imaginary ``quantum parameter'' which is proportional to the inverse of the Planck constant of the gauge theory. The ramified version of the story is also considered.
The notion of flat $λ$-connections as the interpolation of usual flat connections and Higgs fields was suggested by Deligne and further studied by Simpson. Mochizuki established the Kobayashi--Hitchin-type theorem for $λ$-flat bundles ($λ\neq 0$), which is called the Mochizuki correspondence. In this paper, on the one hand, we generalize Mochizuki's result to the case when the base being a compact balanced manifold, more precisely, we prove the existence of harmonic metrics on stable $λ$-flat bundles ($λ\neq 0$). On the other hand, we study two applications of the Simpson--Mochizuki correspond…
We consider the moduli spaces of flat $SL(n, C)$-bundles on Riemann surfaces with one puncture when we fix the conjugacy class ${\cal C}$ of the monodromy transformation around the puncture. We show that under a certain condition on the class ${\cal C}$ (namely the product of $k<n$ eigenvalues is not equal to $1$) that we call property P the moduli space in question is smooth and its natural closure is a normal algebraic variety with rational singularities. The set of conjugacy classes having property P constitutes a Zariski open subset of $SL(n, C)$ and it is also possible to define property …
It is well known that formal solutions to the Associativity Equations are the same as cyclic algebras over the homology operad $(H_*(\bar{M}_{0,n+1}))$ of the moduli spaces of $n$--pointed stable curves of genus zero. In this paper we establish a similar relationship between the pencils of formal flat connections (or solutions to the Commutativity Equations) and homology of a new series $\bar{L}_n$ of pointed stable curves of genus zero. Whereas $\bar{M}_{0,n+1}$ parametrizes trees of $\bold{P}^1$'s with pairwise distinct nonsingular marked points, $\bar{L}_n$ parametrizes strings of $\bold{P}…
We describe typical degenerations of quadratic differentials thus describing ``generic cusps'' of the moduli space of meromorphic quadratic differentials with at most simple poles. The part of the boundary of the moduli space which does not arise from ``generic'' degenerations is often negligible in problems involving information on compactification of the moduli space. However, even for a typical degeneration one may have several short loops on the Riemann surface which shrink simultaneously. We explain this phenomenon, describe all rigid configurations of short loops, present a detailed desc…
In this paper we will use our results about the local deformation theory of Calabi-Yau manifolds to define a Higgs field on the tangent bundle of the moduli space of CY threefolds. Combining this Higgs field with the Levi-Chevitta connection of the Weil-Petersson metrics on the moduli space of three dimensional CY manifolds, we construct a new $Sp(2h^{2,1}% ,\mathbb{R)}$ connection, following the ideas of Cecotti and Vafa. We prove that this new connection is a flat connection. Using this flat connection, we apply the scheme of geometric quantization introduced by Axelrod, Della Pietra and Wit…
At Bradlow's limit, the moduli space of Bogomol'nyi vortices on a compact Riemann surface of genus $g$ is determined. The Kähler form, and the volume of the moduli space is then computed. These results are compared with the corresponding results previously obtained for a general vortex moduli space.
We study the moduli space of trace-free irreducible rank 2 holomorphic connections over a complex projective curve of genus 2 and the forgetful map towards the moduli space of underlying vector bundles (including unstable bundles), for which we compute a natural Lagrangian rational section. As a particularity of the genus $2$ case, connections as above are invariant under the hyperelliptic involution : they descend as rank $2$ logarithmic connections over the Riemann sphere. We establish explicit links between the well-known moduli space of the underlying parabolic bundles with the classical a…
We consider Lyapunov exponents for flat bundles over hyperbolic curves defined via parallel transport over the geodesic flow. We refine a lower bound obtained by Eskin, Kontsevich, Moeller and Zorich showing that the sum of the first k exponents is greater or equal than the sum of the degree of any rank k holomorphic subbundle of the flat bundle and the asymptotic degree of its equivariant developing map. We also show that this inequality is an equality if the base curve is compact. We moreover relate the asymptotic degree to the dynamical degree defined by Daniel and Deroin. We then use the p…
We use group cohomology and the de Rham complex on simplicial manifolds to give explicit differential forms representing generators of the cohomology rings of moduli spaces of representations of fundamental groups of 2-manifolds. These generators are constructed using the de Rham representatives for the cohomology of classifying spaces $BK$ where $K$ is a compact Lie group; such representatives (universal characteristic classes) were found by Bott and Shulman. Thus our representatives for the generators of the cohomology of moduli spaces are given explicitly in terms of the Maurer-Cartan form.…
Let $G$ be a compact connected semisimple Lie group. We extend the techniques of Weinstein [W] to give a construction in group cohomology of symplectic forms $ω$ on \lq twisted' moduli spaces of representations of the fundamental group $π$ of a 2-manifold $Σ$ (the smooth analogues of ${\rm Hom} (π_1(Σ), G)/G$) and on relative character varieties of fundamental groups of 2-manifolds. We extend this construction to exhibit a symplectic form on the extended moduli space [J1] (a Hamiltonian $G$-space from which these moduli spaces may be obtained by symplectic reduction), and compute the moment ma…
The seminal work of Eskin-Masur-Zorich described the principal boundary of moduli spaces of abelian differentials that parameterizes flat surfaces with a prescribed generic configuration of short parallel saddle connections. In this paper we describe the principal boundary for each configuration in terms of twisted differentials over Deligne-Mumford pointed stable curves. We also describe similarly the principal boundary of moduli spaces of quadratic differentials originally studied by Masur-Zorich. Our main technique is the flat geometric degeneration and smoothing developed by Bainbridge-Che…
Local models are schemes which are intended to model the étale-local structure of p-adic integral models of Shimura varieties. Pappas and Zhu have recently given a general group-theoretic construction of flat local models with parahoric level structure for any tamely ramified group, but it remains an interesting problem to characterize the local models, when possible, in terms of an explicit moduli problem. In the setting of local models for ramified, quasi-split GU_n, work towards an explicit moduli description was initiated in the general framework of Rapoport and Zink's book and was subsequ…
We provide a moduli-theoretic framework for the collapsing of Ricci-flat Kahler metrics via compactification of moduli varieties of Morgan-Shalen and Satake type. In patricular, we use it to study the Gromov-Hausdorff limits of hyperKahler metrics with fixed diameters, especially for K3 surfaces.
Local models are schemes, defined in terms of linear-algebraic moduli problems, which give étale-local neighborhoods of integral models of certain p-adic PEL Shimura varieties defined by Rapoport and Zink. In the case of a unitary similitude group whose localization at Q_p is ramified, quasi-split GU_n, Pappas has observed that the original local models are typically not flat, and he and Rapoport have introduced new conditions to the original moduli problem which they conjecture to yield a flat scheme. In a previous paper we proved that their new local models are topologically flat when n is o…
Local models are certain schemes, defined in terms of linear-algebraic moduli problems, which give étale-local neighborhoods of integral models of certain p-adic PEL Shimura varieties defined by Rapoport and Zink. When the group defining the Shimura variety ramifies at p, the local models (and hence the Shimura models) as originally defined can fail to be flat, and it becomes desirable to modify their definition so as to obtain a flat scheme. In the case of unitary similitude groups whose localizations at Q_p are ramified, quasi-split GU_n, Pappas and Rapoport have added new conditions, the so…
We give a comparative description of the Poisson structures on the moduli spaces of flat connections on real surfaces and holomorphic Poisson structures on the moduli spaces of holomorphic bundles on complex surfaces. The symplectic leaves of the latter are classified by restrictions of the bundles to certain divisors. This can be regarded as fixing a "complex analogue of the holonomy" of a connection along a "complex analogue of the boundary" in analogy with the real case.
In this paper we continue our study on the moduli spaces of flat G-bundles, for any semi-simple Lie group G, over a Riemann surface by using heat kernel and Reidemeister torsion. Formulas for intersection numbers on the moduli spaces over a Riemann surface with several boundary components, over non-orientable Riemann surfaces are obtained. Some general vanishing theorems about characteristic numbers of the moduli spaces are proved. We also extend our method to study Higgs moduli spaces, to introduce invariants for knots and 3-manifolds.
