Publications

We investigate the Hitchin hyperkähler metric on the moduli space of strongly parabolic $\mathfrak{sl}(2,\C)$-Higgs bundles on the n-punctured Riemann sphere and its degeneration obtained by scaling the parabolic weights $t\alpha$ as $\alpha\to 0$. Using the parabolic Deligne--Hitchin moduli space, we show that twistor lines of hyperpolygon spaces arise as limiting initial data for twistor lines at small weights, and we construct the corresponding real-analytic families of λ-connections. On suitably shrinking regions of the moduli space, the rescaled Hitchin metric converges, in the semiclassical limit, to the hyperkähler metric on the hyperpolygon space $\mathcal{X}_{\alpha}$, which thus serves as the natural finite-dimensional model for the degeneration of the infinite-dimensional hyperkähler reduction. Moreover, higher-order corrections of the Hitchin metric in this semiclassical regime can be expressed explicitly in terms of iterated integrals of logarithmic differentials on the punctured sphere.

Related project(s):
69Wall-crossing and hyperkähler geometry of moduli spaces

We construct explicit geometric models for moduli spaces of semi-stable strongly parabolic Higgs bundles over the Riemann sphere, in the case of rank two, four marked points, arbitrary degree, and arbitrary weights. The mechanism of construction relies on elementary geometric and combinatorial techniques, based on a detailed study of orbit stability of (in general non-reductive) bundle automorphism groups on certain carefully crafted spaces. The aforementioned techniques are not exclusive to the case we examine, and this work elucidates a general approach to construct arbitrary moduli spaces of semi-stable parabolic Higgs bundles in genus 0, which is encoded into the combinatorics of weight polytopes. We also present a comprehensive analysis of the geometric models' behavior under variation of parabolic weights and wall-crossing, which is concentrated on their nilpotent cones.

Related project(s):
69Wall-crossing and hyperkähler geometry of moduli spaces

Moduli spaces of stable parabolic bundles of parabolic degree \(0\) over the Riemann sphere are stratified according to the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of underlying vector bundles. Over a Zariski open subset \(\mathscr{N}_{0}\) of the open stratum depending explicitly on a choice of parabolic weights, a real-valued function \(\mathscr{S}\) is defined as the regularized critical value of the non-compact Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten action functional. The definition of \(\mathscr{S}\) depends on a suitable notion of parabolic bundle 'uniformization map' following from the Mehta-Seshadri and Birkhoff-Grothendieck theorems. It is shown that \(-\mathscr{S}\) is a primitive for a (1,0)-form \(\vartheta\) on \(\mathscr{N}_{0}\) associated with the uniformization data of each intrinsic irreducible unitary logarithmic connection. Moreover, it is proved that \(-\mathscr{S}\) is a Kähler potential for \((\Omega-\Omega_{\mathrm{T}})|_{\mathscr{N}_{0}}\),  where \(\Omega\) is the Narasimhan-Atiyah-Bott Kähler form in \(\mathscr{N}\) and \(\Omega_{\mathrm{T}}\) is a certain linear combination of tautological \((1,1)\)-forms associated with the marked points. These results provide an explicit relation between the cohomology class \([\Omega]\) and tautological classes, which holds globally over certain open chambers of parabolic weights where \(\mathscr{N}_{0} = \mathscr{N}\).

Related project(s):
32Asymptotic geometry of the Higgs bundle moduli space69Wall-crossing and hyperkähler geometry of moduli spaces

We survey several mathematical developments in the holonomy approach to gauge theory. A cornerstone of such approach is the introduction of group structures on spaces of based loops on a smooth manifold, relying on certain homotopy equivalence relations --- such as the so-called thin homotopy --- and the resulting interpretation of gauge fields as group homomorphisms to a Lie group G satisfying a suitable smoothness condition, encoding the holonomy of a gauge orbit of smooth connections on a principal G-bundle. We also prove several structural results on thin homotopy, and in particular we clarify the difference between thin equivalence and retrace equivalence for piecewise-smooth based loops on a smooth manifold, which are often used interchangeably in the physics literature. We conclude by listing a set of questions on topological and functional analytic aspects of groups of based loops, which we consider to be fundamental to establish a rigorous differential geometric foundation of the holonomy formulation of gauge theory.

Related project(s):
32Asymptotic geometry of the Higgs bundle moduli space69Wall-crossing and hyperkähler geometry of moduli spaces

We define a functional \({\cal J}(h)\) for the space of Hermitian metrics on an arbitrary Higgs bundle over a compact Kähler manifold, as a natural generalization of the mean curvature energy functional of Kobayashi for holomorphic vector bundles, and study some of its basic properties. We show that \({\cal J}(h)\) is bounded from below by a nonnegative constant depending on invariants of the Higgs bundle and the Kähler manifold, and that when achieved, its absolute minima are Hermite-Yang-Mills metrics. We derive a formula relating \({\cal J}(h)\) and another functional \({\cal I}(h)\), closely related to the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional, which can be thought of as an extension of a formula of Kobayashi for holomorphic vector bundles to the Higgs bundles setting. Finally, using 1-parameter families in the space of Hermitian metrics on a Higgs bundle, we compute the first variation of \({\cal J}(h)\), which is expressed as a certain \(L^{2}\)-Hermitian inner product. It follows that a Hermitian metric on a Higgs bundle is a critical point of \({\cal J}(h)\) if and only if the corresponding Hitchin-Simpson mean curvature is parallel with respect to the Hitchin-Simpson connection.

Related project(s):
32Asymptotic geometry of the Higgs bundle moduli space69Wall-crossing and hyperkähler geometry of moduli spaces

We construct explicit geometric models for moduli spaces of stable parabolic Higgs bundles on the Riemann sphere, in the case of rank two, four marked points, any degree, and arbitrary weights. The construction mechanism relies on elementary geometric and combinatorial techniques, based on a detailed study of orbit stability of (in general non-reductive) bundle automorphism groups on carefully crafted spaces. These techniques are not exclusive to the case we examine. Therefore, this work elucidates a general approach to construct arbitrary moduli spaces of stable parabolic Higgs bundles in genus 0, which is encoded into the combinatorics of weight polytopes. Moreover, we present a comprehensive analysis of the geometric models' behavior under variation of weights and wall-crossing. This analysis is concentrated on their nilpotent cones, and is applicable to the study of the hyperkähler geometry of Hitchin metrics as gravitational instantons of ALG type.

Related project(s):
69Wall-crossing and hyperkähler geometry of moduli spaces