Homotopy groups of moduli spaces of representations
Steven B. Bradlow, Oscar Garcia-Prada, Peter B. Gothen
备注:
21 pages; v2: improved results for moduli of representations in GL(n,C), provided proof of Proposition 4.13 (4.12 of v1) correcting argument given in earlier paper, other minor corrections; v3: corrected Remark 4.6, other minor corrections; v4: corrected statements of Proposition 4.17 and Theorems 4.19 and 4.22 (former Theorems 4.18 and 4.20); to appear in Topology
We calculate certain homotopy groups of the moduli spaces for representations of a compact oriented surface in the Lie groups GL(n,C) and U(p,q). Our approach relies on the interpretation of these representations in terms of Higgs bundles and uses Bott--Morse theory on the corresponding moduli spaces.
We determine the Artin-Mazur étale homotopy types of moduli stacks of polarised abelian schemes using transcendental methods and derive some arithmetic properties of the étale fundamental groups of these moduli stacks. Finally we analyse the Torelli morphism between the moduli stacks of algebraic curves and principally polarised abelian schemes from an étale homotopy point of view.
We show that for g > 2k+2 the k-rational homotopy type of the moduli space M_{g,n} of algebraic curves of genus g with n punctures is independent of g, and the space M_{g,n} is k-formal. This implies the existence of a limiting rational homotopy type of M_{g,n} as g goes to infinity and the formality of it.
Using the machinery of etale homotopy theory a' la Artin-Mazur we determine the etale homotopy types of moduli stacks over $\bar{\Q}$ parametrizing families of algebraic curves of genus g greater than 1 endowed with an action of a finite group G of automorphisms, which comes with a fixed embedding in the mapping class group, such that in the associated complex analytic situation the action of G is precisely the differentiable action induced by this specified embedding of G in the mapping class group.
We study the rational homotopy of the moduli space ${\mathcal N}_X$ of stable vector bundles of rank two and fixed determinant of odd degree over a compact connected Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g\geq 2$. The symplectic group $Aut(H_1(X,{\mathbb Z}))=Sp(2g,{\mathbb Z})$ has a natural action on the rational homotopy groups $π_n({\mathcal N}_X) \otimes {\mathbb Q}$. We prove that this action extends to an action of $Sp(2g,{\mathbb C})$ on $π_n({\mathcal N}_X) \otimes {\mathbb C}$. We also show that $π_n({\mathcal N}_X) \otimes {\mathbb C}$ is a non-trivial $Sp(2g,{\mathbb C})$-representation fo…
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…
Since Quillen proved his famous equivalences of homotopy categories in 1969, much work has been done towards classifying the rational homotopy types of simply connected topological places. The majority of this work has focused on rational homotopy types with the same cohomology algebra. The models in this case were differential graded algebras and acted similarly to differential forms. These models were then used together with some deformation theory to describe a moduli space for all rational homotopy types with a given cohomology algebra. Indeed, this theory has been very well developed. How…
The main characters of this paper are the moduli spaces $TM_{g,n}$ of rational tropical curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points, with $g\geq 2$. We reduce the study of the homotopy type of these spaces to the analysis of compact spaces $X_{g,n}$, which in turn possess natural representations as a homotopy colimits of diagrams of topological spaces over combinatorially defined generalized simplicial complexes $Δ_g$, with the latter being interesting on their own right. We use these homotopy colimit representations to describe a CW complex decomposition for each $X_{g,n}$. Furthermore, we use…
We propose an explicit relation between the cohomology of compactified and noncompactified moduli spaces of algebraic curves with punctures. This relationship generalizes one between commutative algebras and Lie algebras proposed by Lazard, Kontsevich and Ginzburg and Kapranov. More explicitly, we show that the cohomology of one moduli space is the graph complex decorated with the cohomology of the other, which in its turn generalizes Getzler's result for the genus zero moduli. We also show that a certain class of algebras over the chain operad of compactified moduli spaces has a natural struc…
In this paper we study homotopy type of certain moduli spaces of metric graphs. More precisely, we show that the spaces $MG_{1,n}^v$, which parametrize the isometry classes of metric graphs of genus 1 with $n$ marks on vertices are homotopy equivalent to the spaces $TM_{1,n}$, which are the moduli spaces of tropical curves of genus 1 with $n$ marked points. Our proof proceeds by providing a sequence of explicit homotopies, with key role played by the so-called scanning homotopy. We conjecture that our result generalizes to the case of arbitrary genus.
An old theorem of Charney and Lee says that the classifying space of the category of stable nodal topological surfaces and isotopy classes of degenerations has the same rational homology as the Deligne-Mumford compactification. We give an integral refinement: the classifying space of the Charney-Lee category actually has the same homotopy type as the moduli stack of stable curves, and the etale homotopy type of the moduli stack is equivalent to the profinite completion of the classifying space of the Charney-Lee category.
We set up a formalism of Maurer-Cartan moduli sets for L-infinity algebras and associated twistings based on the closed model category structure on formal differential graded algebras (a.k.a. differential graded coalgebras). Among other things this formalism allows us to give a compact and manifestly homotopy invariant treatment of Chevalley-Eilenberg and Harrison cohomology. We apply the developed technology to construct rational homotopy models for function spaces.
This thesis is concerned with the application of operadic methods, particularly modular operads, to questions arising in the study of moduli spaces of surfaces as well as applications to the study of homotopy algebras and new constructions of 'quantum invariants' of manifolds inspired by ideas originating from physics. We consider the extension of classical 2-dimensional topological quantum field theories to Klein topological quantum field theories which allow unorientable surfaces. We generalise open topological conformal field theories to open Klein topological conformal field theories and c…
We show that mapping class groups associated to all types of real algebraic curves are virtual duality groups. We also deduce some results about the orbifold homotopy groups of the moduli spaces of real algebraic curves. We achieve these results by defining a new complex associated to a not necessarily orientable surface with boundary called the $\mathcal{A}\mathcal{B}\mathcal{C}$-complex. This complex encodes the intersection patterns of isotopy classes of essential simple arcs, boundary components, and essential simple closed curves. We show that this complex is homotopy equivalent to an inf…
In this paper, we introduce a new class of structured spaces which is locally modeled by Costello's L-infinity spaces. This provides an alternative approach to study the derived geometric structures in the algebraic, analytic, or smooth category. Our main result asserts that on a compact complex manifold, the moduli space of simple holomorphic structures on a complex vector bundle with a fixed determinant bundle, admits a natural analytic homotopy L-infinity enhancement.
We study the large rank limit of the moduli spaces of framed bundles on the projective plane and the blown-up projective plane. These moduli spaces are identified with various instanton moduli spaces on the 4-sphere and $\cpbar $, the projective plane with the reverse orientation. We show that in the direct limit topology, these moduli spaces are homotopic to classifying spaces. For example, the moduli space of $Sp(\infty)$ or $SO(\infty)$ instantons on $\cpbar $ has the homotopy type of $BU(k)$ where $k$ is the charge of the instantons. We use our results along with Taubes' result concerning …
We exhibit a relationship between motivic homotopy theory and spectral algebraic geometry, based on the motivic $τ$-deformation picture of Gheorghe, Isaksen, Wang, Xu. More precisely, we identify cellular motivic spectra over $\mathbf C$ with ind-coherent sheaves (in a slightly non-standard sense) on a certain spectral stack $τ_{\ge 0}(\mathcal M_\mathrm{FG}^\mathrm{or})$. The latter is the connective cover of the non-connective spectral stack $\mathcal M_\mathrm{FG}^\mathrm{or}$, the moduli stack of oriented formal groups, which we have introduced previously and studied in connection with chr…
Let $C$ be an algebraic curve of genus $g$. A coherent system on $C$ consists of a pair $(E,V)$, where $E$ is an algebraic vector bundle over $C$ of rank $n$ and degree $d$ and $V$ is a subspace of dimension $k$ of the space of sections of $E$. The stability of the coherent system depends on a parameter $α$. We study the geometry of the moduli space of coherent systems for different values of $α$ when $k\leq n$ and the variation of the moduli spaces when we vary $α$. As a consequence, for sufficiently large $α$, we compute the Picard groups and the first and second homotopy groups of the modul…
Motivated by the definition of homotopy $L_\infty$ spaces, we develop a new theory of Kuranishi manifolds, closely related to Joyce's recent theory. We prove that Kuranishi manifolds form a $2$-category with invertible $2$-morphisms, and that certain fiber product property holds in this $2$-category. In a subsequent paper, we construct the virtual fundamental cycle of a compact oriented Kuranishi manifold, and prove some of its basic properties. Manifest from this new formulation is the fact that $[0,1]$-type homotopy $L_\infty$ spaces are naturally Kuranishi manifolds. The former structured s…
We study the moduli space of rank stable based instantons over a connected sum of q copies of CP^2. For c_2=1 we give the homotopy type of the moduli space. For c_2=2 we compute the cohomology of the moduli space.
In this note, I discuss in some detail the dual version of the ribbon graph decomposition of the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces with boundary and marked points, which I introduced in math.AG/0402015, and used in math.QA/0412149 to construct open-closed topological conformal field theories. This dual version of the ribbon graph decomposition is a compact orbi-cell complex with a natural weak homotopy equivalence to the moduli space.
We define a filtration by open substacks on the non-connective spectral moduli stack of formal oriented groups, which simultaneously encodes and relates the chromatic filtration of spectra and the height stratification of the classical moduli stack of formal groups. Using this open filtration, we express various classical constructions in chromatic homotopy theory, such as chromatic localization, the monochromatic layer, and $K(n)$-localization, in terms of restriction and completion of sheaves in non-connective spectral algebraic geometry.
The modular envelope of a cyclic operad is the smallest modular operad containing it. A modular operad is constructed from moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces with boundary; this modular operad is shown to be the modular envelope of the A-infinity cyclic operad. This gives a new proof of the result of Harer-Mumford-Thurston-Penner-Kontsevich that a cell complex built from ribbon graphs is homotopy equivalent to the moduli space of curves.
In this paper we show that the moduli space of framed torsion-free sheaves on a certain class of toric surfaces admits a filtrable Bialynicki-Birula decomposition determined by the torus action. The irreducibility of this moduli space follows immediately as a corollary. Moreover, using its filtrable decomposition we show that the moduli space shares the same homotopy type of an invariant proper compact subvariety having the same fixed points set. We start our study from the moduli space of framed torsion-free sheaves on the projective plane. Afterwards, we generalize the results to toric surfa…
This is the third paper in a series. In part I we developed a deformation theory of objects in homotopy and derived categories of DG categories. Here we show how this theory can be used to study deformations of objects in homotopy and derived categories of abelian categories. Then we consider examples from (noncommutative) algebraic geometry. In particular, we study noncommutative Grassmanians that are true noncommutative moduli spaces of structure sheaves of projective subspaces in projective spaces.
We develop methods for computing the restriction map from the cohomology of the automorphism group of a height $dn$ formal group law (i.e., the height $dn$ Morava stabilizer group) to the cohomology of the automorphism group of an $A$-height $n$ formal $A$-module, where $A$ is the ring of integers in a degree $d$ field extension of $\mathbb{Q}_p$. We then compute this map for the quadratic extensions of $\mathbb{Q}_p$ and the height $2$ Morava stabilizer group at primes $p>3$. We show that the these automorphism groups of formal modules are closed subgroups of the Morava stabilizer groups, and…
In this paper we study topology of moduli spaces of tropical curves of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points. We view the moduli spaces as being imbedded in a larger space, which we call the {\it moduli space of metric graphs with $n$ marked points.} We describe the shrinking bridges strong deformation retraction, which leads to a substantial simplification of all these moduli spaces. In the rest of the paper, that reduction is used to analyze the case of genus 1. The corresponding moduli space is presented as a quotient space of a torus with respect to the conjugation ${\mathbb Z}_2$-action; and f…
A smooth curve in the real projective plane is hyperbolic if its ovals are maximally nested. By the Helton-Vinnikov Theorem, any such curve admits a definite symmetric determinantal representation. We use polynomial homotopy continuation to compute such representations numerically. Our method works by lifting paths from the space of hyperbolic polynomials to a branched cover in the space of pairs of symmetric matrices.
We establish an isomorphism of complex $K$-theory of the moduli space $\check{\mathcal{M}}$ of $``SL_n"$-Higgs bundles of degree $d$ and rank $n$ (in the sense of Hausel--Thaddeus) and twisted complex $K$-theory of the orbifold $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$ of $PGL_n$-Higgs bundles of degree $e$, where $(n,d)=(n,e)=1$. Along the way we prove the vanishing of torsion for $H^*(\check{\mathcal{M}})$ and certain twisted complex $K$-theory groups of $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$. We also extend Arinkin's autoduality of compactified Jacobian to a derived equivalence between $SL_n$ and $PGL_n$-Hitchin systems over the e…
A general form for the boundary coupling of a Lie algebroid Poisson sigma model is proposed. The approach involves using the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism in the AKSZ geometrical version, to write a BRST-invariant coupling for a representation up to homotopy of the target Lie algebroid or its subalgebroids. These considerations lead to a conjectural description of topological D-branes on generalized complex manifolds, which includes A-branes and B-branes as special cases.
Inspired by his vanishing results of tautological classes and by Harer's computation of the virtual cohomological dimension of the mapping class group, Looijenga conjectured that the moduli space of smooth Riemann surfaces admits a stratification by affine subsets with a certain number of layers. Similarly, Roth and Vakil extended the conjecture to the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces of compact type, of Riemann surfaces with rational tails and of Riemann surfaces with at most k rational components. As a consequence of Lefschetz's theorem, Roth-Vakil's conjecture would also imply that the pre…
Recent algebraic structures of string theory, including homotopy Lie algebras, gravity algebras and Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras, are deduced from the topology of the moduli spaces of punctured Riemann spheres. The principal reason for these structures to appear is as simple as the following. A conformal field theory is an algebra over the operad of punctured Riemann surfaces, this operad gives rise to certain standard operads governing the three kinds of algebras, and that yields the structures of such algebras on the (physical) state space naturally.
A number of compactifications familiar in complex-analytic geometry, in particular, the Baily-Borel compactification and its toroidal variants, as well as the Deligne-Mumford compactifications, can be covered by open subsets whose nonempty intersections are Eilenberg-MacLane spaces. We exploit this fact to describe the (rational) homotopy type of these spaces and the natural maps between them in terms of the simplicial sets attached to certain categories. We thus generalize an old result of Charney-Lee on the Baily-Borel compactification of A_g and recover (and rephrase) a more recent one of E…
In this paper, we give a construction of the moduli space of filtered representations of a given quiver of fixed dimension vector with the appropriate notion of stability. The construction of the moduli of filtered representations uses the moduli of representations of ladder quiver. The ladder quiver is introduced using a given quiver and a linear type quiver. We also study determinantal theta functions on such moduli spaces.
The author constructs the moduli of representations whose images generate the subalgebra of upper triangular matrices (up to inner automorphisms) of the full matrix ring for any groups and any monoids.
We study the relationship between two stratifications on parameter spaces for coherent sheaves and for quiver representations: a stratification by Harder-Narasimhan types and a stratification arising from the geometric invariant theory construction of the associated moduli spaces of semistable objects. For quiver representations, both stratifications coincide, but this is not quite true for sheaves. We explain why the stratifications on various Quot schemes do not coincide and see that the correct parameter space to compare such stratifications is the stack of coherent sheaves. Then we relate …
In this paper we study spaces of algebras over an operad (non-symmetric) in symmetric monoidal model categories. We first compute the homotopy fiber of the forgetful functor sending an algebra to its underlying object, extending a result of Rezk. We then apply this computation to the construction of geometric moduli stacks of algebras over an operad in a homotopical algebraic geometry context in the sense of Toën and Vezzosi. We show under mild hypotheses that the moduli stack of unital associative algebras is a Zariski open substack of the moduli stack of non-necessarily unital associative al…
Atiyah and Bott used equivariant Morse theory applied to the Yang-Mills functional to calculate the Betti numbers of moduli spaces of vector bundles over a Riemann surface, rederiving inductive formulae obtained from an arithmetic approach which involved the Tamagawa number of SL_n. This article surveys this link between Yang-Mills theory and Tamagawa numbers, and explains how methods used over the last three decades to study the singular cohomology of moduli spaces of bundles on a smooth complex projective curve can be adapted to the setting of A^1-homotopy theory to study the motivic cohomol…
We connect the homotopy type of simplicial moduli spaces of algebraic structures to the cohomology of their deformation complexes. Then we prove that under several assumptions, mapping spaces of algebras over a monad in an appropriate diagram category form affine stacks in the sense of Toen-Vezzosi's homotopical algebraic geometry. This includes simplicial moduli spaces of algebraic structures over a given object (for instance a cochain complex). When these algebraic structures are parametrised by properads, the tangent complexes give the known cohomology theory for such structures and there i…
Let G be a connected reductive complex affine algebraic group, and let X denote the moduli space of G-valued representations of a rank r free group. We first characterize the singularities in X, extending a theorem of Richardson and proving a Mumford-type result about topological singularities; this resolves conjectures of Florentino-Lawton. In particular, we compute the codimension of the orbifold singular locus using facts about Borel-de Siebenthal subgroups. We then use the codimension bound to calculate higher homotopy groups of the smooth locus of X, proving conjectures of Florentino-Lawt…
We study moduli spaces of (semi-)stable representations of one-point extensions of quivers by rigid representations. This class of moduli spaces unifies Grassmannians of subrepresentations of rigid representations and moduli spaces of representations of generalized Kronecker quivers. With homological methods, we find numerical criteria for non-emptiness and results on basic geometric properties, construct generating semi-invariants, expand the Gel'fand MacPherson correspondence, and derive a formula for the Poincare polynomial in singular cohomology of these moduli spaces.
There are 6 types of 2-dimensional representations in general. For any groups and any monoids, we can construct the moduli of 2-dimensional representations for each type: the moduli of absolutely irreducible representations, representations with Borel mold, representations with semi-simple mold, representations with unipotent mold, representations with unipotent mold over ${\Bbb F}_2$, and representations with scalar mold. We can also construct them for any associative algebras.
Let $G$ be a real reductive algebraic group with maximal compact subgroup $K$, and let $F_r$ be a rank $r$ free group. We show that the space of closed orbits in $\mathrm{Hom}(F_r,G)/G$ admits a strong deformation retraction to the orbit space $\mathrm{Hom}(F_r,K)/K$. In particular, all such spaces have the same homotopy type. We compute the Poincaré polynomials of these spaces for some low rank groups $G$, such as $\mathrm{Sp}(4,\mathbb{R})$ and $\mathrm{U}(2,2)$. We also compare these real moduli spaces to the real points of the corresponding complex moduli spaces, and describe the geometry …
Let overline{M}_{g,n} be the moduli space of stable algebraic curves of genus g with n marked points. With the operations which relate the different moduli spaces identifying marked points, the family (overline{M}_{g,n})_{g,n} is a modular operad of projective smooth Deligne-Mumford stacks, overline{M}. In this paper we prove that the modular operad of singular chains C_*(overline{M};Q) is formal; so it is weakly equivalent to the modular operad of its homology H_*(overline{M};Q). As a consequence, the "up to homotopy" algebras of these two operads are the same. To obtain this result we prove …
Motivated by rational homotopy theory, we study a representable presheaf of groups $\mathbf{\mathfrak{P}}$ on the homotopy category of cocommutative differential graded coalgebras, its Lie algebraic counterpart and its linear representations. We prove a Tannaka type reconstruction theorem that $\mathbf{\mathfrak{P}}$ can be recovered from the dg-category of its linear representations along with the forgetful dg-functor to the underlying dg-category of chain complexes.
Motivated by problems in the neural networks setting, we study moduli spaces of double framed quiver representations and give both a linear algebra description and a representation theoretic description of these moduli spaces. We define a network category whose isomorphism classes of objects correspond to the orbits of quiver representations, in which neural networks map input data. We then prove that the output of a neural network depends only on the corresponding point in the moduli space. Finally, we present a different perspective on mapping neural networks with a specific activation funct…
The purpose of this paper is to explain and to generalize, in a homotopical way, the result of Barannikov-Kontsevich and Manin which states that the underlying homology groups of some Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras carry a Frobenius manifold structure. To this extent, we first make the minimal model for the operad encoding BV-algebras explicit. Then we prove a homotopy transfer theorem for the associated notion of homotopy BV-algebra. The final result provides an extension of the action of the homology of the Deligne-Mumford-Knudsen moduli space of genus 0 curves on the homology of some BV-algebr…