Semistable Higgs bundles on elliptic surfaces (Q2127856)

The Bogomolov inequality asserts that a torsion-free sheaf \(F\) over a non-singular projective scheme of dimension \(n\geq 2\) (over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(0\)), which is slope semistable with respect to a polarization \(H\), satisfies the inequality \(\Delta(F)\cdot H^{n-2}\geq 0\), where \(\Delta(F)=2rc_2 - (r-1)c_1^2\) is the discriminant. A similar inequality holds for Higgs sheaves \((F,\phi)\) on \((Y, H)\) where \(\phi\in H^0(End(F)\otimes \Omega_Y)\) plus \(\phi \wedge \phi=0\). The question of characterizing those slope semistable sheaves for which the lower bound is attained in the Bogomolov inequality is solved by [\textit{C. T. Simpson}, Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 75, 5--95 (1992; Zbl 0814.32003)], coinciding with those such that their pull-back \(f^{\ast}(F)\) to an irreducible, non-singular, projective curve \(f:C\longrightarrow Y\) is again semistable. For Higgs bundles this is a conjecture, having been proved in one direction (semistable Higgs sheaves have semistable pull-backs) and in the other direction for certain clases of varieties \(Y\) (with nef tangent bundle, \(K3\) surfaces and Calabi-Yau varieties). This paper addresses the conjecture for elliptic surfaces (see precise definitions in section 2), using the fact that semistable Higgs bundles over curves have semistable underlying vector bundles when the curve is rational or elliptic and reducing the conjecture to Higgs bundles with vertical determinant and semistable restriction to the closed fibers of the elliptic fibration. The proof of the conjecture (see Proposition 5.6) uses techniques of spectral covers and Hitchin fibrations and semistable reduction (see sections 3 and 4) and holds under additional generality restrictions on the Chern classes and the spectral curve of \(F\) being sufficiently general.