Cohomological boundedness for flat bundles on surfaces and applications

This paper explores the cohomological consequences of the existence of moduli spaces for flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity at infinity and gives unconditional proofs. Namely, we prove the existence of a universal bound for the dimension of De Rham cohomology of flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity on surfaces. In any dimension, we prove a Lefschetz recognition principle stating the existence of hyperplane sections distinguishing flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity after restriction. We obtain in any dimension a universal bound for the degrees of the turning loci of flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity. Along the way, we introduce a new operation on the group of b-divisors on a smooth surface (the partial discrepancy) and prove a closed formula for the characteristic cycles of flat bundles on surfaces in terms of the partial discrepancy of the irregularity b-divisor attached to any flat bundle by Kedlaya.