Moduli spaces of vector bundles on a real nodal curve (Q2204384)

The present article concerns the Picard group of the moduli stack \(M\left( r,\xi \right)\) of vector bundles with fixed rank \(r\ge 2\) and determinant \(\xi \) over a real nodal curve. Let \(Y\) be a genus \(g\ge 2\) geometrically irreducible nodal projective algebraic curve defined over \(\mathbb{R}\). Let also \(\xi \) be a degree \(d\) line bundle over \(Y\); then \({{\xi }_{\mathbb{C}}}\) (the complexification of \(\xi \)) corresponds to a line bundle over \({{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}:=Y{{\times }_{\mathbb{R}}}\mathbb{C}\), having a real or a quaternionic structure. The author proves that the Picard group \(\text{Pic}M\left( r,\xi \right)\) of the moduli stack \(M\left( r,\xi \right)\) is (1) generated by \(L\left( \text{det} \right)\) and \(L\left( \xi \right)\), if \(\xi \) is a real line bundle, (2) generated by \(L\left( \text{det} \right)\) and \(L{{\left( \xi \right)}^{\otimes 2}}\), if \(\xi \) is quaternionic,\newline where \(L\left( \text{det} \right)\) above stands for the determinant of cohomology line bundle over \(M\left( r,\xi \right)\), while \(L\left( \xi \right)\) denotes the real point of \(\text{Pic}M\left( r,\xi \right)\) such that the fibre of the line bundle \(L{{\left( \xi \right)}_{\mathbb{C}}}\) over \(M{{\left( r,\xi \right)}_{\mathbb{C}}}\) over the point corresponding to a vector bundle \(E\) is \(\text{Hom}\left( {{\xi }_{\mathbb{C}}},\det E \right)\). For the proof of this result the author considers the moduli stack \(\tilde{M}\left( r,\xi_{\mathbb{C}} \right)\) of vector bundles over \({{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}\) and shows that this is isomorphic to the moduli stack of rank \(r\), degree \(d\) vector bundles \(F\) on \({{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}\), together with an isomorphism \({{\delta }_{Y}}:{{\wedge }^{r}}\left( F \right)\to {{\mathsf{\mathcal{O}}}_{{{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}}}\left( d{{p}_{0}} \right)\), for \({{\mathsf{\mathcal{O}}}_{{{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}}}\left( d{{p}_{0}} \right)\) the line bundle over a fixed non-singular closed point \({{p}_{0}}\in {{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}\) and a fixed integer \(d\). This way, it is shown that \(\text{Pic}\tilde{M}\left( r,\xi \right)\) is isomorphic to \(\mathbb{Z}\) and generated by the pull-back of \(L{{\left( \text{det} \right)}_{{{Y}_{\mathbb{C}}}}}\) on \(M\left( r,\xi_{\mathbb{C}} \right)\). Moreover, the open substack \(M^{gs}\left( r,\xi \right)\subset M\left( r,\xi \right)\) of geometrically stable vector bundles is a gerb with band \(\mathbb G_{m}\) over \(U\left( r,\xi \right)\), the moduli \textit{space} of stable vector bundles with fixed \(r\) and \(\xi \) over \(Y\). Now, call \(\chi :=d+r(1-g)\) and let \({{h}_{1}}=\text{gcd}\left( r,\chi \right)\), \({{h}_{2}}=\text{gcd}\left( 2r,\chi \right)\). For \({\chi }':=\frac{\chi }{{{h}_{1}}}\) and \({r}':=\frac{r}{{{h}_{1}}}\), the main result of this article states that the Picard group \(\text{Pic}U\left( r,\xi \right)\) is (1) generated by \(L\left( \theta \right)\), if \(\xi \) is a real line bundle or \({\chi }'\) is even, (2) generated by \(L{{\left( \theta \right)}^{\otimes 2}}\), if \(\xi \) is quaternionic and \({\chi }'\) is odd, where in the above \(L\left( \theta \right):=L{{\left( \text{det} \right)}^{\otimes -{r}'}}\otimes L{{\left( \xi \right)}^{\otimes {\chi }'}}\). Lastly, the author computes explicitly the Brauer group of the real moduli space \(U\left( r,\xi \right)\). In particular, assuming that for \(g=r=2\), \(d\) is odd, it is shown that (1) If \(\xi \) is a real line bundle, then \(\text{Br}U\left( r,\xi \right)\cong \frac{\mathbb{Z}}{{{h}_{1}}\mathbb{Z}}\oplus \frac{\mathbb{Z}}{2\mathbb{Z}}\), (2) If \(\xi \) is quaternionic, then \(\text{Br}U\left( r,\xi \right)\cong \frac{\mathbb{Z}}{{{h}_{2}}\mathbb{Z}}\). \newline The proof lies on a short exact sequence argument involving the Brauer group of the complex moduli space \(U{{\left( r,\xi \right)}_{\mathbb{C}}}\) and previous work by \textit{U. Bhosle} and \textit{I. Biswas} [Commun. Algebra 42, No. 4, 1769--1784 (2014; Zbl 1304.14043)] showing that under these conditions it is \(\text{Br}U{{\left( r,\xi \right)}_{\mathbb{C}}}\cong \frac{\mathbb{Z}}{{{h}_{1}}\mathbb{Z}}\), generated by the Brauer class \({{\beta }_{\mathbb{C}}}\) of the projective bundle \({{\left( {{\mathbb{P}}_{{{p}_{0}}}} \right)}_{\mathbb{C}}}\) over \(U{{\left( r,\xi \right)}_{\mathbb{C}}}\).