Universal moduli spaces of surfaces with flat bundles and cobordism theory (Q1019756)

Let \(G\) be a compact, connected, semi-simple Lie group and suppose that \(\gamma \in \pi_1(G) = H_2(BG)\). Denote by \({\mathcal M}^G_{g,\gamma}\) the moduli space of pairs \((\Sigma, E)\), where \(\Sigma\) is a compact Riemann surface of genus \(g\) and \(E \to \Sigma\) is a flat \(G\)-bundle whose isomorphism type is determined by \(\gamma\). This article establishes a stability result for the homology of \({\mathcal M}^G_{g,\gamma}\). The authors prove that there is a map from \({\mathcal M}^G_{g,\gamma}\) to the infinite loop space \( \Omega^\infty({\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^\infty_{-1} \wedge BG_+)\) such that the induced map \[ H_q( {\mathcal M}^G_{g,\gamma}) \to H_q(\Omega^\infty_\bullet({\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^\infty_{-1} \wedge BG_+)) \] on homology groups is an isomorphism in the stable range \(g \geq 2 q+4\). Here, \({\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^\infty_{-1}\) denotes the Thom spectrum of the virtual inverse \(-L\) of the canonical line bundle \(L \to {\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^\infty\), and \(BG_+\) denotes the classifying space of \(G\) with a disjoint basepoint added. It follows that \(H_q( {\mathcal M}^G_{g,\gamma})\) is independent of \(g\) and \(\gamma\) in the stable range, and working over the rationals, the authors show that the stable cohomology is generated by the Mumford-Morita-Miller \(\kappa\)-classes and the rational cohomology of \(BG\). This stability result is then translated into the corresponding statement for semi-stable bundles and applied to surface group representations. For example, in the case \(G=U(n)\), it gives an isomorphism \[ H_q( {\mathcal M}_{ss}(V)) \to H_q(\Omega^\infty_\bullet({\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^\infty_{-1} \wedge BU(n)_+)) \] for \(g \geq 2 q+4\). Here, \({\mathcal M}_{ss}(V)\) is the moduli space parameterizing families of semi-stable vector bundles where both the Riemann surface and the bundle are allowed to vary. The authors also give an application to the Out\((\pi_1 \Sigma)\) homology of the representation variety Rep\((\pi_1 \Sigma, G).\) The last section concerns the cobordism category \({\mathcal C}^F_G\) of surfaces equipped with flat \(G\)-bundles, and the authors determine the homotopy type of the geometric realization of this category by showing that \(B {\mathcal C}^F_G \simeq \Omega^\infty(\Sigma({\mathbb C}{\mathbb P}^\infty_{-1} \wedge BG_+)).\)