Hitchin fibrations on two-dimensional moduli spaces of irregular Higgs bundles with one singular fiber (Q2280424)

The aim of this paper is to analyze and completely describe the four cases when the Hitchin fibration on a \(2\)-dimensional moduli space of irregular Higgs bundles over \(\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^1\) has a single singular fiber. The case when the fiber at infinity is of type \(I^*_0\) is further analyzed, and the authors give constructions of all the possible configurations of singular curves in elliptic fibrations having this type of singular fiber at infinity. This paper is organized as follows: The first section is an introduction to the subject. In Section 2 the authors collect some facts and definitions of Higgs bundles and the Hitchin map, relevant to their present investigation. They also include the necessary stability analysis here. Section 4 is devoted to list background material regarding elliptic fibrations, and in Section 5 they describe the proofs of the statements about Hitchin fibrations with unique singular fibers given in this introduction. Finally in Section 6 the authors describe a number of constructions for elliptic fibrations with one of the singular fibers being \(I^*_0\), hence proving that any configuration of singular fibers on the complement of an \(I^*_0\) fiber in a rational elliptic surface arises as the set of singular fibers of a Hitchin fibration. In these constructions they pay special attention to the further singular fibers of the resulting fibrations