Related papers: Convex Foliated Projective Structures and the Hitc…

For semisimple Lie groups, moduli spaces of Higgs bundles on a Riemann surface correspond to representation varieties for the surface fundamental group. In many cases, natural topological invariants label connected components of the moduli…

Let $P(S)$ be the space of projective structures on a closed surface $S$ of genus $g >1$ and let $Q(S)$ be the subset of $P(S)$ of projective structures with quasifuchsian holonomy. It is known that $Q(S)$ consists of infinitely many…

We study a class of continuous deformations of branched complex projective structures on closed surfaces of genus $g\geq 2$, which preserve the holonomy representation of the structure and the order of the branch points. In the case of…

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 construct projective unitary representations of the smooth Deligne cohomology group of a compact oriented Riemannian manifold of dimension 4k+1, generalizing positive energy representations of the loop group of the circle. We also…

We discuss hamiltonian structures of the Gelfand-Dorfman complex of projectable vector fields and differential forms on a foliated manifold. Such a structure defines a Poisson structure on the algebra of foliated functions, and embeds the…

We show that the critical exponent of a representation in the Hitchin component of $PSL(d,\mathbb{R})$ is bounded above, the least upper bound being attained only in the Fuchsian locus. This provides a rigid inequality for the area of a…

The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, we define symplectic maps between Hitchin systems related to holomorphic bundles of different degrees. We call these maps the Symplectic Hecke Correspondence (SHC) of the corresponding Higgs…

In this paper we compute the homotopy groups of the symplectomorphism groups of the 3-, 4- and 5-point blow-ups of the projective plane (considered as monotone symplectic Del Pezzo surfaces). Along the way, we need to compute the homotopy…

We study the representation theory of the fundamental group of the complement of a Hopf link with n twists. A general framework is described to analyze the $SL_r(C)$-representation varieties of these twisted Hopf links as byproduct of a…

We study a particular class of representations from the fundamental groups of punctured spheres $\Sigma_{0,n}$ to the group $\text{PSL} (2,\mathbb R)$ (and their moduli spaces), that we call \emph{super-maximal}. Super-maximal…

We provide a complete characterisation of extreme points of the space of sofic representations. We also show that the restriction map $Sof(G,P^{\omega})$ to $Sof(H,P^{\omega})$, where $H\subset G$ is not always surjective. The first part of…

For a fixed compact Riemann surface X, of genus at least 2, we count the number of connected components of the moduli space of maximal Higgs bundles over X for the hermitian groups $PSp(2n,R)$, $PSO^*(2n)$, $PSO_0(2,n)$ and $E_6^{-14}$.…

We give a geometric interpretation of Fock--Goncharov positivity and show that bending deformations of Fuchsian representations stabilize a uniform Finsler quasi-convex disk in the symmetric space $\mathrm{PSL}_d(\mathbb…

In this paper, we derive a maximum principle for a type of elliptic systems and apply it to analyze the Hitchin equation for cyclic Higgs bundles. We show several domination results on the pullback metric of the (possibly branched) minimal…

We define convex projective structures on 2D surfaces with holes and investigate their moduli space. We prove that this moduli space is canonically identified with the higher Teichmuller space for the group PSL_3 defined in our paper…

We study a wide range of homologically-defined representations of surface braid groups and of mapping class groups of surfaces, including the Lawrence-Bigelow representations of the classical braid groups. These representations naturally…

The aim of this paper and its sequel is to introduce and classify the holonomy algebras of the projective Tractor connection. After a brief historical background, this paper presents and analyses the projective Cartan and Tractor…

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 present a survey on the moduli spaces of rank 2 quadric bundles over a compact Riemann surface X. These are objects which generalise orthogonal bundles and which naturally occur through the study of the connected components of the moduli…