On the Morgan-Shalen compactification of the \(SL(2,\mathbb{C})\) character varieties of surface groups (Q1976041)

Let \(\Sigma \) be a closed, compact, oriented surface of genus \(g\geq 2\) and fundamental group \(\Gamma \), and let \(\mathcal{H}(\Gamma)\) denote the \(SL(2,\mathbb {C})\) character variety of \(\Gamma \). Then \(\mathcal{H}(\Gamma)\) is an affine variety admitting a compacification \(\overline{\mathcal{H}(\Gamma)}\) due to \textit{J. Morgan} and \textit{P. Shalen} [Ann. Math. (2) 120, 401-476 (1984; Zbl 0583.57005)]. Choose a metric \(\sigma \) on \(\Sigma \), and let \(\mathcal{M}_{\text{Higgs}}(\sigma)\) denote the moduli space of semistable rank-2 Higgs pairs on \(\Sigma (\sigma)\) with trivial determinant due to \textit{N. J. Hitchin} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 55, 59-126 (1987; Zbl 0634.53045)]. Then \(\mathcal{M}_{\text{Higgs}}\) is an algebraic variety [\textit{C. T. Simpson}, Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci., Publ. Math. 80, 5-79 (1995; Zbl 0891.14006)] homeomorphic to \(\mathcal{H}(\Gamma)\) [\textit{S. K. Donaldson}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 55, 127-131 (1987; Zbl 0634.53046)]. The authors construct a compactification of \(\mathcal{M}_{Higgs}\) via the space of normalized holomorphic quadratic differentials on \(\Sigma \) and extend the homeomorphism \(h:\mathcal{H}(\Gamma)\to \mathcal{M}_{\text{Higgs}}\) to a continuous and surjective map \(\bar{h}:\overline{\mathcal{H}(\Gamma)}\to \overline{\mathcal{M}_{\text{Higgs}}}\), that is a homeomorphism on the compactification of the discrete faithful representations.