English

Maximal surface group representations in isometry groups of classical Hermitian symmetric spaces

Algebraic Geometry 2012-09-11 v3 Differential Geometry

Abstract

Higgs bundles and non-abelian Hodge theory provide holomorphic methods with which to study the moduli spaces of surface group representations in a reductive Lie group G. In this paper we survey the case in which G is the isometry group of a classical Hermitian symmetric space of non-compact type. Using Morse theory on the moduli spaces of Higgs bundles, we compute the number of connected components of the moduli space of representations with maximal Toledo invariant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0511415,
  title  = {Maximal surface group representations in isometry groups of classical Hermitian symmetric spaces},
  author = {Steven B. Bradlow and Oscar Garcia-Prada and Peter B. Gothen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0511415},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

v2: added due credits to the work of Burger, Iozzi and Wienhard. v3: corrected count of connected components for G=SU(p,q) (p \neq q); added due credits to the work of Xia and Markman-Xia; minor corrections and clarifications. 31 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-22T17:27:30.693Z