Character varieties of virtually nilpotent Kähler groups and \(G\)-Higgs bundles (Q5962652)

The article under review extends previous results of the authors constructing strong deformation retracts from \(G\)-character varieties to \(K\)-character varieties of compact Kähler manifolds whose fundamental group is virtually nilpotent. Let \(G\) be a complex reductive affine algebraic group and \(K\) a maximal compact subgroup of \(G\). Let \(M\) a complex connected Kähler manifold and let \(\Gamma=\pi_{1}(X,x_{0})\) be its fundamental group. We say that \(\Gamma\) is virtually nilpotent if there is a finite index subgroup \(\Gamma_{1}\subset \Gamma\) which is nilpotent. Using non-abelian Hodge theory, there is a correspondence between flat principal \(G\)-bndles on a smooth complex projective variety \(X\) and semistable \(G\)-Higgs bundles on \(X\) with vanishing characteristic classes of positive degrees. In the compact Kähler case this correspondence remains the same, after substituting semistability by pseudostability. A Higgs vector bundle is pseudostable if it admits a filtration of stable Higgs subbundles of the same slope, and a \(G\)-Higgs bundle is pseudostable if its adjoint Higgs vector bundle is. Using the aforementioned correspondence between the character variety and the moduli of \(G\)-Higgs bundles over a complex connected Kähler manifold with fundamental group \(\Gamma\) virtually nilponent, the authors show that the underlying principal \(G\)-bundle to the pseudostable \(G\)-Higgs bundle associated to a representation of \(\Gamma\) in \(G\), is again pseudostable (c.f. Proposition 3.2). This allows to use the \(\mathbb{C}^{\ast}\)-action in the \(G\)-character variety to produce a strong deformation retract into the \(K\)-character variety (c.~f. Theorem 4.2).