Moduli of unstable bundles of HN-length two with fixed algebra of endomorphisms (Q6607617)

Since the 1960s, following David Mumford, moduli spaces of semistable vector bundles are constructed via reductive Geometric Invariant Theory. One reason why this approach does not easily extend to unstable bundles is the existence of too many automorphisms of such vector bundles.\N\NIn recent years progress has been made in the study of moduli of unstable bundles, see for example [\textit{V. Hoskins} and \textit{F. Kirwan}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 105, No. 4, 852--890 (2012; Zbl 1263.14048); \textit{V. Hoskins} and \textit{J. Jackson}, J. Algebra 657, 207--285 (2024; Zbl 07897480)] where non-reductive GIT is used to construct moduli spaces of certain sheaves.\N\NAn important tool to study unstable bundles is the Harder-Narasimhan filtration, which describes unstable bundles with the aid of a sequence of extensions of semistable bundles. The HN-length of an unstable bundle is the number of semistable quotients in the Harder-Narasimhan filtration. In particular, a vector bundle has HN-length two if the quotient by its maximal destabilising subbundle is semistable, i.e.\ if the bundle is an unstable extension of two semistable vector bundles.\N\NTo construct moduli spaces of unstable bundles, usually additional information about the vector bundle like the shape of its Harder-Narasimhan filtration or the structure of its endomorphism algebra is fixed. In the paper under review, the authors investigate unstable bundles of HN-length two with fixed algebra of endomorphisms over a complex projective curve of genus \(g\ge 2\).\N\NThey first show that the endomorphism algebra of such a bundle is isomorphic to \(\mathbb{C}[x_1,\ldots,x_k]/(x_1,\ldots,x_k)^2\) for some \(k\ge 0\), and then that there exists a coarse moduli space of such bundles with fixed \(k\), which is fine when \(k=0\). Conditions are given under which this moduli space is non-empty and it is shown that it then is irreducible, smooth and of the expected dimension. The proof is based on the construction of a flattening stratification of a certain Ext-sheaf for which twisted Brill-Noether theory is used.\N\NThe authors also discuss the special case of unstable vector bundles which are extensions of a line bundle by a semistable bundle. In this case, their results are reformulations of existing results in Brill-Noether theory. It is interesting to note that, as a consequence, results about smoothness, dimension and non-emptiness of the moduli spaces of unstable bundles can depend on the curve (e.g.\ being special or not) and not only on the invariants as it is the case for moduli of stable bundles. Finally, the non-emptiness not known before of certain twisted Brill-Noether loci is established.\N\NFor the entire collection see [Zbl 1545.14003].