Root stacks, principal bundles and connections (Q428759)

This paper develops the theory of principal bundles over root stacks, with a focus on dimension one and the problem of developing a coherent generalization of the notion of a parabolic structure on a principal bundle. Mehta and Seshadri introduced parabolic vector bundles over compact Riemann surfaces and established a correspondence between the moduli space of stable parabolic bundles and the variety of conjugacy classes of unitary representations of the fundamental group of the punctured surface with fixed holonomy around the punctures. In the case of rational weights, N. Borne showed how to reinterpret parabolic bundles in terms of vector bundles over the root stack, and the article under review develops the theory of parabolic principle bundles using a similar approach based on principal bundles over the root stack. The authors compare their approach to an earlier notion of parabolic principal bundle, as developed by \textit{V. Balaji, I. Biswas} and \textit{D. S. Nagaraj} [Tohoku Math. J., II. Ser. 53, No. 3, 337--367 (2001; Zbl 1070.14506)]. In that paper, parabolic principal \(G\)-bundles are defined in terms of tensor functors from the category of left \(G\)-representations to the category of parabolic vector bundles. In the paper under review, the authors show their definition in terms of bundles over the root stack is equivalent to this earlier notion. One of the results proved here is Theorem 5.1, and it gives a criterion for the existence of an algebraic connection in a principal \(G\)-bundle over a complete root stack of dimension one in the case \(G\) is a reductive affine algebraic group. In Section 7, the authors relate connections in a principal bundle over the root stack to connections on a parahoric torsor.