Related papers: Higgs bundles and surface group representations in…
In this paper we describe the space of maximal components of the character variety of surface group representations into PSp(4,R) and Sp(4,R). For every rank 2 real Lie group of Hermitian type, we construct a mapping class group invariant…
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…
We study moduli spaces of Higgs bundles with two poles on an elliptic curve. We describe all singular fibers of the Hitchin map, including the nilpotent cone. To achieve this, we consider a modular map that lifts Higgs bundles with five…
In this paper we use the Morse theory of the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional on the singular space of Higgs bundles on Riemann surfaces to compute the equivariant cohomology of the space of semistable U(2,1) and SU(2,1) Higgs bundles with fixed…
We consider the moduli space of vector bundles of rank $n$ and degree $ng$ over a fixed Riemann surface of genus $g\geq 2$. We use the explicit parametrization in terms of the Tyurin data. In the moduli space there is a "non-abelian" Theta…
In this paper, we study the algebraic symplectic geometry of the singular moduli spaces of Higgs bundles of degree $0$ and rank $n$ on a compact Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g$. In particular, we prove that such moduli spaces are…
Abstract. Let G be a complex reductive group and A be an Abelian variety of dimension d over $\mathbb{C}$. We determine the Poincar\'e polynomials and also the mixed Hodge polynomials of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{A}^{H}(G)$ of G-Higgs…
A symplectic or orthogonal bundle $V$ of rank $2n$ over a curve has an invariant $t(V)$ which measures the maximal degree of its isotropic subbundles of rank $n$. This invariant $t$ defines stratifications on moduli spaces of symplectic and…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of certain loci of the Higgs bundle moduli space on a compact Riemann surface. Motivated by mirror symmetry, we give a detailed description of the fibres of the $G$-Hitchin fibration containing…
It is well known that the moduli space of flat connections on a trivial principal bundle MxG, where G is a connected Lie group, is isomorphic to the representation variety Hom(\pi_1(M), G)/G. For a tiling T, viewed as a marked copy of R^d,…
This expository paper details the theory of rank one Higgs bundles over a closed Riemann surface X and their relationship to representations of the fundamental group of X. We construct an equivalence between the deformation theories of flat…
We study the character variety of representations of the fundamental group of a closed surface of genus $g\geq2$ into the Lie group SO(n,n+1) using Higgs bundles. For each integer $0<d\leq n(2g-2),$ we show there is a smooth connected…
We introduce the moduli space of quasi-parabolic $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$-Higgs bundles over a compact Riemann surface $\Sigma$ and consider a natural involution, studying its fixed point locus when $\Sigma$ is $\mathbb{C} \mathbb{P}^1$ and…
We show that for every nonelementary representation of a surface group into $SL(2,{\mathbb C})$ there is a Riemann surface structure such that the Higgs bundle associated to the representation lies outside the discriminant locus of the…
In this paper, we study the moduli space of Higgs pairs, which can be considered as a generalization of holomorphic pairs. Higgs pairs are an example of quiver bundles. We introduce the notion of $\tau$-stability of Higgs pairs for…
Let $X$ be a compact connected Riemann surface and $D$ an effective divisor on $X$. Let ${\mathcal N}_H(r,d)$ denote the moduli space of $D$-twisted stable Higgs bundles (a special class of Hitchin pairs) on $X$ of rank $r$ and degree $d$.…
We propose a definition of the Toledo invariant for representations of fundamental groups of smooth varieties of general type into semisimple Lie groups of Hermitian type. This definition allows to generalize the results known in the…
These are the lecture notes from my course in the January 2011 School on Moduli Spaces at the Newton Institute. I give an introduction to Higgs bundles and their application to the study of character varieties for surface group…
We describe here a degeneration of the symplectic desingularization of the moduli spaces of topologically trivial $GL(2,\mathbb{C})$ and $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$-Higgs bundles over a hyperelliptic curve, into O'Grady's ten and six dimensional…
We prove that any Borel Anosov representations of a surface group into $Sp(4,\mathbb{R})$ that has maximal Toledo invariant must be Hitchin. We also prove that a representation of a surface group into $Sp(2n,\mathbb{R})$ that is…