Connections and restrictions to curves (Q1636163)

The authors show that there are vector bundles on a smooth complex projective surface \(X\) which do not have any algebraic connection, but with the property that its restrictions to any smooth curve in \(X\) have algebraic connections. The idea is to construct a surface \(X\) as above, with \(\text{Pic}(X)={\mathbb Z}\), to consider a nontrivial extension \(0 \rightarrow L \rightarrow E \rightarrow {\mathcal O}_X \rightarrow 0\), where \(L\in \text{Pic}(X)\) is the ``smallest ample line bundle'' such that \(H^1(X,L)\not =0\). They show that \(\text{End(E)}\) has the above property. A final remark gives situations when the existence of connections on all restrictions to smooth curves implies the existence of a connection on the whole variety.