The Hermite-Einstein equation and stable principal bundles (an updated survey) (Q1018072)

The paper is a survey of the last twenty years contributions to the relation between a fundamental equation of general relativity and quantum field theory with the theory of stable vector bundles and stable principal bundles. It deals also with the contributions to the construction (and compactification) of moduli spaces for these objects. Just to give an ideea, we mention the sections of this survey: 1. Introduction; 2. Physical motivations: general relativity; 3. Physical motivations: Yang-Mills equations; 4. Moduli of ASD solutions and stability of vector bundles; Moduli of slope-stable principal bundles and compactification; 6. Positive characteristic; 7. Higgs sheaves.