Characteristic classes of Higgs bundles and Reznikov's theorem (Q512819)

The paper deals with characteristic classes of Higgs bundles. The author introduces Dolbeault cohomology classes of Higgs bundles over complex manifolds. It is known that flat vector bundles have characteristic classes lying in odd de Rham cohomology. \textit{A. Reznikov} [Ann. Math. (2) 141, No. 2, 373--386 (1995; Zbl 0865.14003)] proved that these cohomology classes must vanish in degree three and higher over compact Kähler manifolds. By making use of the nonabelian Hodge theorem and the Chern-Weil theory for flat characteristic classes, the author gives a simple proof of Renikov's theorem. He gives a differential form representation of these classes in an arbitrary hermitian metric on the vector bundles.