The hyperkähler metric on the almost-Fuchsian moduli space (Q2187952)

Summary: In [Surv. Differ. Geom. 8, 171--189 (2003; Zbl 1078.53084)], \textit{S. K. Donaldson} constructed a hyper-Kähler moduli space \(\mathcal{M}\) associated to a closed oriented surface \(\Sigma\) with genus \((\Sigma) \geq 2\). This embeds naturally into the cotangent bundle \(T^*\mathcal{T}(\Sigma)\) of Teichmüller space or can be identified with the almost-Fuchsian moduli space associated to \(\Sigma \). The latter is the moduli space of quasi-Fuchsian threefolds which contain a unique incompressible minimal surface with principal curvatures in \((-1,1)\). Donaldson outlined various remarkable properties of this moduli space for which we provide complete proofs in this paper: On the cotangent-bundle of Teichmüller space, the hyper-Kähler structure on \(\mathcal{M}\) can be viewed as the Feix-Kaledin hyper-Kähler extension of the Weil-Petersson metric. The almost-Fuchsian moduli space embeds into the SL \((2,\mathbb{C})\)-representation variety of \(\Sigma\) and the hyper-Kähler structure on \(\mathcal{M}\) extends the Goldman holomorphic symplectic structure. Here, the natural complex structure corresponds to the second complex structure in the first picture. Moreover, the area of the minimal surface in an almost-Fuchsian manifold provides a kähler potential for the hyper-Kähler metric. The various identifications are obtained using the work of \textit{K. K. Uhlenbeck} [Ann. Math. Stud. 103, 147--168 (1983; Zbl 0529.53007)] on germs of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, an explicit map from \(\mathcal{M}\) to \(\mathcal{T}(\Sigma)\times \overline{\mathcal{T}(\Sigma)}\) found by \textit{T. W. S. Hodge} [Hyperkähler geometry and Teichmüller space. London: Imperial College (PhD Thesis) (2005)], the simultaneous uniformization theorem of \textit{L. Bers} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 66, 94--97 (1960; Zbl 0090.05101)], and the theory of Higgs bundles introduced by \textit{N. J. Hitchin} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 55, 59--126 (1987; Zbl 0634.53045)].