Cohomology of the moduli space of Hecke cycles (Q1771810)

Let \(X\) be a smooth projective curve over \(C\) of genus \(g \geq 3\). Then the moduli space \(M_0\) of semistable rank \(2\) vector bundles with trivial determinant is a normal projective variety of dimension \(3g-3\), which has singularities. The paper under review deals with various desingularizations of \(M_0\) and clarifies their relationships. The different desingularizations are due to Seshadri (``\(S\)''), to Narasimhan and Ramanan (``\(N\)'', also called the moduli space of Hecke cycles) and to Kirwan (``\(K\)''). The authors prove that there exist morphisms \(K \rightarrow N \rightarrow S\), which can be described as blow-ups along smooth subvarieties. The authors use their constructions also to compute the cohomology of \(N\).