Monodromy of the SL(n) and GL(n) Hitchin fibrations

DOI10.1007/S00208-017-1611-6MaRDI QIDQ1709780zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors David Baraglia

Publication date 6 April 2018

Published in Mathematische Annalen (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.01583

zbMATH Keywords

Hitchin fibrationintegrable systemsmodulimonodromyvector bundles

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Structure of families (Picard-Lefschetz, monodromy, etc.) (14D05) Vector bundles on curves and their moduli (14H60) Relationships between algebraic curves and integrable systems (14H70) Special connections and metrics on vector bundles (Hermite-Einstein, Yang-Mills) (53C07)

Abstract: We compute the monodromy of the Hitchin fibration for the moduli space of $L$-twisted $SL(n,mathbbC)$ and $GL(n,mathbbC)$-Higgs bundles for any $n$, on a compact Riemann surface of genus $g>1$. We require the line bundle $L$ to either be the canonical bundle or satisfy $deg(L)>2g-2$. The monodromy group is generated by Picard-Lefschetz transformations associated to vanishing cycles of singular spectral curves. We construct such vanishing cycles explicitly and use this to show that the $SL(n,mathbbC)$ monodromy group is a {em skew-symmetric vanishing lattice} in the sense of Janssen. Using the classification of vanishing lattices over $mathbbZ$, we completely determine the structure of the monodromy groups of the $SL(n,mathbbC)$ and $GL(n,mathbbC)$ Hitchin fibrations. As an application we determine the image of the restriction map from the cohomology of the moduli space of Higgs bundles to the cohomology of a non-singular fibre of the Hitchin fibration.

Review text

Let \(\mathcal{A} =\bigoplus_{j=2}^n H^0(\Sigma, L^j)\) be the affine space [\textit{N. J. Hitchin}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 55, 59--126 (1987; Zbl 0634.53045); Duke Math. J. 54, 91--114 (1987; Zbl 0627.14024)] and [\textit{N. Nitsure}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 62, No. 2, 275--300 (1991; Zbl 0733.14005)]. The aim of this paper is to determine the monodromy of the \(\mathrm{SL}(n, \mathbb{C})\)-Hitchin fibration (also known as the Hitchin map or Hitchin system) \(h : \mathcal{M}(n,L)\longrightarrow\mathcal{A}\) for all \(n\). Here \(\mathcal{M}(n, L)\) is the moduli space of \(L\)-twisted \(\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{C})\)-Higgs bundles on a compact Riemann surface of genus \(g>1\) and \(L\) is a line bundle which is either the canonical bundle \(K\), or satisfies \(\deg(L)>2g-2\). As shown by Hitchin [loc. cit.], when \(L=K\) the Hitchin map gives \(\mathcal{M}(n, L)\) the structure of an algebraically completely integrable system with respect to a natural holomorphic symplectic structure on \(\mathcal{M}(n, L)\). For \(L\neq K\), there is no holomorphic symplectic structure, but it remains the case that the non-singular fibres of the Hitchin map are abelian varieties. Finding the monodromy of this fibration is a natural problem which has a number of important applications. For \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})\), the monodromy was first determined in [\textit{D. J. Copeland}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 2005, No. 29, 1743--1785 (2005; Zbl 1093.14016)] using a combinatorial approach and later revisited in [the author and \textit{L. P. Schaposnik}, ``Monodromy of rank 2 twisted Hitchin systems and real character varieties, Preprint, \url{arXiv:1506.00372}] from a more geometric point of view. It does not seem possible to extend the arguments used in [loc. cit.] to rank \(n>2\). In this paper the author's demonstration also gives the monodromy of the corresponding \(\mathrm{GL}(n,\mathbb{C})\)-Hitchin fibration. More precisely, the author computes the monodromy of the Hitchin fibration for the moduli space of \(L\)-twisted \(\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{C})\) and \(\mathrm{GL}(n,\mathbb{C})\)-Higgs bundles for any \(n\), on a compact Riemann surface of genus \(g>1\). He requires the line bundle \(L\) to either be the canonical bundle or satisfy \(\deg(L)>2g-2\). The monodromy group is generated by Picard-Lefschetz transformations associated to vanishing cycles of singular spectral curves. He constructs such vanishing cycles explicitly and uses this to show that the \(\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{C})\) monodromy group is a skew-symmetric vanishing lattice in the sense of Janssen. Using the classification of vanishing lattices over \(\mathbb{Z}\), he completely determines the structure of the monodromy groups of the \(\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{C})\) and \(\mathrm{GL}(n,\mathbb{C})\) Hitchin fibrations. In this paper the author introduces new techniques that apply for all \(n\). As an application he determines the image of the restriction map from the cohomology of the moduli space of Higgs bundles to the cohomology of a non-singular fibre of the Hitchin fibration.

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Cited in

(13)

• Singular geometry and Higgs bundles in string theory
• On the monodromy of the Hitchin connection
• Supersymmetry, Ricci flat manifolds and the string landscape
• Monodromy of rank 2 parabolic Hitchin systems
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5151089 (Why is no real title available?)
• Cayley and Langlands type correspondences for orthogonal Higgs bundles
• Monodromy of rank 2 twisted Hitchin systems and real character varieties
• Monodromy of the \(\mathrm{SL}_2\) Hitchin fibration
• An explicit view of the Hitchin fibration on the Betti side for $\mathbb{P}^1$ minus five points
• A support theorem for the Hitchin fibration: the case of \(\mathrm{SL}_{n}\)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2242780 (Why is no real title available?)
• Hodge-to-singular correspondence for reduced curves
• A general Cayley correspondence and higher rank Teichmüller spaces

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