The intersection form on moduli spaces of twisted \(\mathrm{PGL}_n\)-Higgs bundles vanishes (Q303621)

The main result of this paper is the proof a conjecture of Hausel and Rodriguez-Villegas on the cohomology of the moduli space of stable \(\mathrm{PGL}_n\)-Higgs bundles \(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\), on a smooth projective complex curve \(C\), for any rank \(n\) and any degree \(d\) coprime to \(n\). Denote the canonical bundle of \(C\) by \(\Omega\). The space \(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\) is a quotient of the moduli space \(M_n^d\) of rank \(n\) and degree \(d\) \(\mathrm{GL}_n\)-Higgs bundles. The coprimality condition \((n,d)=1\) assures the smoothness of \(M_n^d\) and hence the fact that \(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\) has only finite quotient singularities. Consider its rational cohomology \(H^*(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n})\). Hausel and Rodriguez-Villegas conjectured that the intersection form on \(H^*(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n})\) vanishes identically (the case \(n=2\) has been shown to be true around twenty years ago). The main theorem of the paper proves this conjecture. An equivalent formulation is that the forgetful map from compactly supported cohomology \(H_c^*(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n})\to H^*(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n})\) is zero. Since \(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\) contracts to the nilpotent cone -- the fiber over zero of the Hitchin fibration \(h_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}:M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\to \bigoplus_{i=2}^nH^0(C,\Omega^{\otimes i})\) -- whose dimension is half that of \(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\), it follows that \(M^d_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}\) has no cohomology of degree higher than middle, and hence by Poincaré duality the same holds for lower than middle degree compactly supported cohomology. Thus the theorem only requires proof for the middle degree cohomology group. It turns out that this group is freely generated by the cycle classes of the irreducible components of the nilpotent cone \(h_{\mathrm{PGL}_n}^{-1}(0)\). Moreover, these components are quotients by \(\mathrm{Pic}_C\) of the irreducible components of the nilpotent cone of \(M_n^d\), i.e., \(h^{-1}(0)\) where \(h:M_n^d\to \bigoplus_{i=1}^nH^0(C,\Omega^{\otimes i})\) is the Hitchin fibration on \(M_n^d\). The way the author uses to study these components of \(h^{-1}(0)\) (except the one corresponding to the moduli of stable vector bundles) is deform them to \(h^{-1}(a)\), where \(a\in \bigoplus_{i=1}^nH^0(C,\Omega^{\otimes i})\) is a point in the Hitchin base, whose spectral curve is reducible and often non-reduced. From these explicit deformations, the author is able to express the cycle class of the irreducible component of \(h^{-1}(a)\) containing the deformed component in terms of the cycle classes of the irreducible components of \(h^{-1}(0)\). This is done via the \(\mathbb{C}^*\)-action on \(M_n^d\) scaling the Higgs field. The explicit form of these deformed components is enough to prove that the cup product between their classes is zero, and the same holds for the cup product between their classes and the class of the moduli of stable bundles of type \((n,d)\). Then, by the above mentioned explicit relation between the cycle classes, the same holds using the irreducible components of \(h^{-1}(0)\). Finally the same holds for the self-intersection of the class of the moduli of stable bundles, using the fact that its Euler characteristic is zero. This gives a brief overview of the proof of the main theorem. Actually the irreducible components of \(h^{-1}(0)\) are in bijective correspondence to the \(\mathbb C^*\)-fixed point subvarieties. These subvarieties have a modular interpretation as the moduli space of holomorphic chains, whose semistability condition depends on a tuple of real parameters. The argument to complete the proof of the main theorem uses the fact that the moduli spaces of chains are irreducible (for stability parameters whose successive differences of its components are bigger than \(2g-2\)). This is proved in this paper as well, being the other main result, due to its clear independent interest.