Homotopy groups of free group character varieties
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Singularities in algebraic geometry (14B05) Algebraic moduli problems, moduli of vector bundles (14D20) Geometric invariant theory (14L24) Group actions on varieties or schemes (quotients) (14L30) Homotopy groups, general; sets of homotopy classes (55Q05) Simplicial sets and complexes in algebraic topology (55U10)
Abstract: Let G be a connected, complex reductive Lie group with maximal compact subgroup K, and let X denote the moduli space of G- or K-valued representations of a rank r free group. In this article, we develop methods for studying the low-dimensional homotopy groups of these spaces and of their subspaces Y of irreducible representations. Our main result is that when G = GL(n,C) or SL(n,C), the second homotopy group of X is trivial. The proof depends on a new general position-type result in a singular setting. This result is proven in the Appendix and may be of independent interest. We also obtain new information regarding the homotopy groups of the subspaces Y. Recent work of Biswas and Lawton determined the fundamental group of X for general G, and we describe the fundamental group of Y. Specializing to the case G = GL(n,C), we explicitly compute the homotopy groups of the smooth locus of X in a large range of dimensions, finding that they exhibit Bott Periodicity. As a further application of our methods (and in particular our general position result) we obtain new results regarding centralizers of subgroups of G and K, motivated by a question of Sikora. Additionally, we use work of Richardson to solve a conjecture of Florentino-Lawton about the singular locus of X, and we give a topological proof that for G= GL(n,C) or SL(n,C), the space X is not a rational Poincar'e Duality Space for r>3 and n=2.
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Cited in
(28)- Homotopy groups of moduli spaces of representations
- Bad irreducible subgroups and singular locus for character varieties in \(\mathrm{PSL}(p,\mathbb {C})\)
- Centralizers of irreducible subgroups in the projective linear group
- Varieties of characters
- Singularities of free group character varieties
- Virtual classes of representation varieties of upper triangular matrices via topological quantum field theories
- Bad representations and homotopy of character varieties
- Serre polynomials of \(\mathrm{SL}_n\)- and \(\mathrm{PGL}_n\)-character varieties of free groups
- The homotopy groups of a homotopy group completion
- \(G\)-character varieties for \(G =\mathrm{SO}(n,\mathbb{C})\) and other not simply connected groups
- Vanishing theorems for representation homology and the derived cotangent complex
- Poincaré series of character varieties for nilpotent groups
- The topology of parabolic character varieties of free groups
- Topology of moduli spaces of free group representations in real reductive groups
- Character varieties of free groups are Gorenstein but not always factorial
- Homotopy type of the complex of free factors of a free group
- \(\mathrm{SO}(2n, \mathbb{C})\)-character varieties are not varieties of characters
- Invariants of pairs in \(\mathrm{SL}(4, \mathbb {C})\) and \(\mathrm{SU}(3, 1)\)
- Representation homology of simply connected spaces
- Flawed groups and the topology of character varieties
- Non-ergodicity on SU(2) and SU(3) character varieties of the once-punctured torus
- Stratification of \(\mathrm{SU}(r)\)-character varieties of twisted Hopf links
- Rank 1 character varieties of finitely presented groups
- Character varieties of generalized torus knot groups
- Dynamics on the \(\mathrm{SU}(2,1)\)-character variety of the one-holed torus
- Mixed Hodge structures on character varieties of nilpotent groups
- Fundamental group of moduli spaces of representations
- The topology of moduli spaces of free group representations
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