Group-valued Implosion and Parabolic Structures

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First we extend the notion of symplectic implosion to the category of quasi-Hamiltonian $K$-manifolds, where $K$ is a simply connected compact Lie group. The imploded cross-section of the double $K\times K$ turns out to be universal in a suitable sense. It is a singular space, but some of its strata have a nonsingular closure. This observation leads to interesting new examples of quasi-Hamiltonian $K$-manifolds, such as the ``spinning $2n$-sphere'' for $K=\SU(n)$. Secondly we construct a universal (``master'') moduli space of parabolic bundles with structure group $K$ over a marked Riemann surface. The master moduli space carries a natural action of a maximal torus of $K$ and a torus-invariant stratification into manifolds, each of which has a symplectic structure. An essential ingredient in the construction is the universal implosion. Paradoxically, although the universal implosion has no complex structure (it is the four-sphere for $K=\SU(2)$), the master moduli space turns out to be a complex algebraic variety.