Fundamental group of a geometric invariant theoretic quotient (Q2353481)

Let \(G\) be a connected reductive algebraic group, \(M\) an irreducible smooth projective \(G\)-variety and \(\mathcal{L}\) a \(G\)-equivariant very ample line bundle on \(M\), all over an algebraically closed field \(k\). In this set up we have a GIT quotient \(M/\!/G\) and a quotient map \(M \to M/\!/G\). This quotient map induces a homomorphism \(\pi_1(M) \to \pi_1(M/\!/G)\) of algebraic fundamental groups. In this paper the authors show that this induced homomorphism of fundamental groups is an isomorphism. The proof is fairly self-contained (except for some standard references) and proceeds by directly constructing the map \(h\) and an inverse \(H\). The authors also show that if \(k = \mathbb{C}\), the analogous map of topological fundamental groups is also an isomorphism.