Abelian Yang-Mills theory on real tori and theta divisors of Klein surfaces (Q380043)

A Klein surface is a closed Riemann surface with an anti-holomorphic involution. Families of Dirac type operators on Klein surfaces associated with Spin and Spin\(^c\) structures define gauged linear \(\sigma\)--models with values in symplectic quotients endowed with real structures. Orientability of the corresponding moduli spaces is largely determined by the first Stiefel-Whitney classes of their determinant index bundles, which in this case can be identified with some natural theta bundles on Klein surfaces. The paper focuses on computing these classes for two particular theta bundles denoted \(\mathcal{L}_\kappa\) and \(\mathcal{L}_{p_0}\) corresponding to the Spin and Spin\(^c\) cases respectively. While the Chern classes of \(\mathcal{L}_\kappa\) and \(\mathcal{L}_{p_0}\) can be calculated using the Atiyah-Singer index theorem for families, there is no similar theorem for the Stiefel-Whitney classes of the corresponding real line bundles \(L_\kappa\) and \(L_{p_0}\). To compute \(w_1(L_\kappa)\) the authors use the Appell-Humbert data of \(\mathcal{L}_\kappa\), the linear algebra data specifying a unique representative in each gauge class of Yang-Mills connections, then \(w_1(L_{p_0})\) is computed by comparing it to \(w_1(L_\kappa)\). This works because the Appell-Humbert data can be interpreted as the curvature and the holonomy of a connection, and \(w_1(L_\kappa)\) as the holonomy representation of an \(O(1)\) connection. The authors also give a general result identifying isomorphism classes of real line bundles on compact real Riemannian manifolds with connected components of the fixed point locus of the induced involution on the moduli of Yang-Mills connections. They proceed to compute the Grothendieck group of real line bundles on a real torus, and give a new proof of the Appell-Humbert theorem, that describes the Picard group of a complex torus. The Appell-Humbert data of \(\mathcal{L}_\kappa\) is first expressed in terms of the intersection form of the curve and Mumford's theta form \(q_\kappa\), but then a purely topological interpretation of \(q_\kappa\) is obtained extending a result of \textit{S. M. Natanzon} [Moduli of Riemann surfaces, real algebraic curves, and their superanalogs. Translated from the 2003 Russian edition by Sergei Lando. Translations of Mathematical Monographs 225. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2004; Zbl 1056.14033)]. As an application, the results are applied to the symmetric powers of the curve, the simplest possible moduli associated with it. It is also explained how the orientability of the real part of the fixed locus of the moduli of sections of projective bundles over a Klein surface \(C\) is controlled by the first Stiefel-Whitney classes of certain determinant line bundles on the fixed locus of \(\mathrm{Pic}^0(C)\).