Poisson structure on character varieties (Q2022915)

Let \(G\) be a complex reductive Lie group and \(X\) a compact connected oriented surface. Atiyah, Bott and Goldman showed that the character space \(\mathcal{R}(X,G)\) of completely reducible flat \(G\)-connections on \(X\) has a canonical symplectic structure. The ``punctured'' version of this space is very interesting: Pick a finite number of points \(x_1,\ldots,x_m\) in \(X\) and put \(X_0 = X \setminus \{x_1,\ldots,x_m\}\). Using loop groups, M. Audin showed that \(\mathcal{R}(X_0,G)\) is a Poisson manifold. Its symplectic leaves are the following: For every \(i=1,\ldots,m\) fix a conjugacy class \(C_i\) in \(G\). When \(X\) has a complex structure, the space \(\mathcal{R}(X_0,G)_C\) of flat \(G\) connections on \(X_0\) whose monodromy around each \(x_i\) lies in \(C_i\), is the moduli space of semistable parabolic \(G_{\mathbb{C}}\)-bundles (here \(G_{\mathbb{C}}\) is the complexification of \(G\)). It is well known that \(\mathcal{R}(X_0,G)_C\) has a symplectic structure. The authors give a simpler construction of the Poisson structure of \(\mathcal{R}(X_0,G)\), without using loop groups. To this end, they use a priori the symplectic structure of \(\mathcal{R}(X_0,G)_C\).